The Essence Of Security

THE ESSENCE OF SECURITY

Harper & Row, Publishers
New York, Evanston, and London

ROBERT S. McNAMARA

THE ESSENCE
OF SECURITY

REFLECTIONS IN OFFICE

The lines on page no arc from "The Road Not Taken" from Com-
plete Poems of Robert Fro su Copyright 1916 by Holt, Rinehart and
Winston, Inc, Copyright by Robert Frost, Reprinted by permission
of Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc,

THE essence or SECURITY. Copyright © ip(S by Robert S, Mm m.
Frintcit in tie 0 tilted States of America. All rights reserved, For inform-
tion address Harper it R 0^ Publishers, Incorporated, § East flrd Street,
New York, N. Y, m(,

UltHARY OF CONGIjeSS CATAIOG CARD NUMBER: 68-29573

I-S

CONTENTS

Preface vii

PART I i THIS WORLD WE LIVE IN

CHAPTER ONE W HERE U E STAND 3

CHAPTER TWO WHERE INTERESTS COLLIDE 12

CHAPTER THRFE NATO AND THE FORCES

OF CHANGE J2

PART II 1 THE TOOLS OF POWER

CHAPTER »OU« MUTUAL DFTFRRF.NCF 5 1

CHAPTER FIVE THE CHOICT OF WEAPONS 68

CHAPTER SIT MANAGING FOR OFFENSE 87

PART III t WHERE SECURITY LIES

CHAPTER SEVEN ON GAPS AND BRIDGES IO 7

CHAPTER EIGHT NEW* MISSIONS 122

CHAPTER NINE THE ESSENCF OF SFCURm I 4 I

EPILOGUE I J9

Appendix I, The Emerf'tng Nuclear Capability of

Red China 163

Appendix II. Sources 167

Index 169

PREFACE

My seven-year tenure as Secretary of Defense under two
Presidents lias ranged oxer a broad spectrum of respon-
sibilities That, of course, is the inevitable nature of an
office which direct]} employs over four million people, in-
directly affects the employment of sc\ cral million more in
defense-related industries, manages roughly half of the
federal budget, some 10 percent of the Gross National
Product, and in a thermonuclear era is charged with actions
which affect not only the security but the \cry survival of
our twcnticth-cenrur) society

Since my appointment in 1961 1 hate felt that the people
of this nation, tn whose name and by whose ulnmatc con-
sent all high government officiate serve, have both the need
and the right to be thoroughly informed on the Depart-
ment's decisions. The only narrow and necessary exceptions
are those matters restricted by the irreducible requirements
of intelligence collection or battlefield security, and these
items arc closely review cd by the appropriate committees
of the Congress.

Because I behex e in the public’s pamcipanon in the ox er-

viii / The Essence of Security

riding issues of security, I have thought that it might be
useful to have published in one volume the principles and
philosophy by which I have directed the activities of the
Defense Establishment. This is being done as I leave office,
but I want to stress that these are neither memoirs nor per-
sonal recollections. Rather, they are my actual policy state-
ments, edited and adapted for clarity and logical sequence
by Mr. Henry Trewhitt, a distinguished writer on inter-
national affairs. They are drawn from documents, includ-
ing the declassified versions of a number of highly sensitive
security matters.* I have adopted this editorial method
deliberately, for I do not wish to indulge in the luxury of
rejudging issues or events after the fact.

Yet my purpose is not simply to chronicle a scries of prin-
ciples and decisions; my object is to urge the individual
American citizen to weigh these matters thoughtfully. The
dilemma is that as security considerations become increas-
ingly enmeshed in technological and political complexity,
the layman begins to feel that the complications are be-
wilderingly beyond his competence to evaluate. That is an
understandable but dangerous mistake for a citizen to make
in any free and open society. The mere complexity of a
relevant problem does not relieve one of the responsibility
of solving it. The truth is that few problems today are more

* I was fully employed by the U.S. Government during the period
these documents were developed; moreover, as I shall describe later, I
was assisted in their preparation by large numbers of my colleagues who
were also in federal service. Therefore I shall accept no income from
the publication of this book. Whatever compensation would normally
accrue to me will be channeled to a university to support a secies of
annual lectures dealing with the broad issues of foreign policy and
defense affairs.

Preface / tx

relevant to the individual citizen of the United States thin
those of national security.

How realistically we assess the intentions of potential
enemies, what purposes and capabilities we assign to our
military forces, how wisely uc plan for possible contingen-
cies, how accurately we analyze our range of political, eco-
nomic and military options, how responsibly we apply our
force when force is required, how efficiently we manage
our institutions; how boldly we nourish necessary and
imaginative innovation in political and social as well as
technical fields, in summary, how carefully wc think
through the rational relationship of means to end in the
pursuit of the kind of global environment which will permit
all people to live freely and to achieve personal fulfillment
— these arc the relevant problems of defense that every
mature citizen ought to ponder

To think about them profitably along with the solutions
proposed, one must begin by understanding the premises
my associates and I have followed This \olume blueprints
those premises in detail From them, wc hast over the past
set cn ) ears drawn certain central conclusions They form
the foundation upon which we refashioned and rebuilt the
Defense Establishment for which wc were assigned respon-
sibility in early 1961. As one would expect, circumstances
hate inters cned with the passage of time which have called
for readjustments. Rut we have been able to make these
with relative ease, since an essential clement of our original
concept was to create an establishment that was flexible and
responsive rather than fixed and immobile.

x / The Essence of Security

Thus the core conclusions of this book are the same as
those on which we have based all our major defense de-
cisions under the leadership of two Presidents and on which
we have planned as far forward into the future as we can
realistically foresee. These core conclusions are:

That the security of the United States must continue to
rest on a firm commitment to the policy of collective
security, not retreat — no matter what the provocation or
what the allurement— into the futile illusion of isolation-
ism.

That although our strategic nuclear capability is absolutely
vital to our security and to that of our allies, its only
realistic role is deterrence of all-out nuclear or non-
nuclear attacks since it is now impossible for either the
United States or the Soviet Union to achieve a meaning-
ful victory over the other in a strategic nuclear exchange.
That the doctrine of massive retaliation is therefore useless
as a guarantee of our security, and must continue to give
way to both the rheory and the practice of flexible re-
sponse.

That the direction of the Department of Defense demands
not only a strong, responsible civilian control, but a Sec-
retary’s role that consists of active, imaginative and de-
cisive leadership of the establishment at large, and not the
passive practice of simply refereeing the disputes of tradi-
tional and partisan factions.

That the dynamics of efficient management in so complex
an institution as the Defense Department necessarily re-
quire the use of modern managerial tools and increasing

Vreface / i n

efforts to determine w hether the “cost” of each major
program and each new project is justified by the “bene-
fit” or strength it adds to our security.

That the Department’s primary' role of combat readiness is
fully consistent with innovative programs designed to
utilize at minimal cost its potential for significantly con-
tributing to the solution of the nation's social problems
And that finally’ the security of this Repubbe lies not solely'
or even primarily in military force, hut equally in de-
v eloping stable patterns of economic and polincal growth
both at home and tn the developing nations throughout
the world

It is these seven broad conclusions thar this volume
establishes In my view, the\ and their logical corollaries
arc the chief issues that a Secretary of Defense must fare
and implement. That is how I have proceeded, and I take
full and absolute responsibility for whatever decisions,
wise or mistaken, I have made during my assignment to this
office.

For the mistaken decisions, 1 stand alone For the wise
ones I ovv e much to a superb group of colleagues l want to
acknnvv ledge that debt here, the only’ difficulty lies in sin-
gling individuals out by name. The list is impressive enough
to deserve a chapter by itself. President Kennedy, who ap-
pointed me to the Cabinet, President Johnson, w ho renewed
my mandate; the extraordinarily talented members of the
White House staff; my' Cabinet colleagues, the mem!>crs
of the Defense-related committees of the Congress, w hose
support, constructive criticism and dissent are all essential

xii / The Essence of Security

to the vitality of the democratic process; my Deputies,
Roswell Gilpatric, Cyrus Vance and Paul Nitze; my Direc-
tors of Defense Research and Engineering, Herbert York,
Harold Brown and John Foster; my Service Secretaries,
Stanley Resor, Paul Ignatius, Eugene Zuckert; my Assistant
Secretaries — a distinguished group of men of the caliber
of Charles Hitch, Alain Enthoven, John McNaughton,
Arthur Sylvester, Paul Wamke, Tom Morris, Phil Goul-
ding, Norman Paul, A 1 Fitt, Sol Horowitz, Robert An-
thony; my assistants for specialized matters, Adam Yar-
mollnsky, Joseph Califano, Jack Stempler, Dave Mc-
Giffcrt, Dan Henkin, Jack Maddux, Henry Glass, John
Steadman; the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and in particular, their
Chairmen: Generals Lemnitzer, Taylor and Wheeler; my
personal Military Assistants, Lieutenant General George
Brown and Colonels Sidney Berry, Robert Pursley and
Robert Gard; my tireless and tactful personal secretaries,
Miss Margaret Stroud and Miss Polly Yates; and all that
long and loyal list of others, both in and out of uniform,
who have served this Department and this Republic so
selflessly.

No man could possibly have been assisted by a finer
group of colleagues than I. Working with associates of such
high talent and character has been one of the chief rewards
of tins office. It is to them, and to the host of others un-
named, that I dedicate this volume.

Robert S. McNamara

The Pentagon
W nshmgton, D.C.

Vebruary 2$, 1968

PART I

This World We Live In

CHAPTER ONE

Where We Stand

In the years smec John F Kennedy asked me to join his
new Administration, the military and economic strength of
the United States and its allies has increased dramatically
But so have the difficulty and complexity of the problems
y\e haye had to face tn framing our military policies. These
years haye seen the acceleration of trends which will make
the world of the 1970s very different from the world of
the early 1960s.

Since the early 19605 the divisions within the Communist
world, already apparent then, ha\e deepened and widened.
Indeed, there are now not simply two center? of Com*

4 / The Essence of Security

munism but several: Havana shows little inclination to fol-
low the lead of Moscow or Peking, and is itself trying to
lead the splintered Communist movements of the develop-
ing world. In Moscow we still see a desire to undermine the
institutions of many nations and the influence of the United
States. But we find this desire tempered by a prudence
powerfully reinforced by a justly held fear of nuclear war.

The new relationships have opened avenues hitherto
closed, and also created new risks. On the one hand we find
ourselves engaged in a conflict with North Vietnam and its
South Vietnamese supporters to preserve the principle
that political change must not be brought about by ex-
ternally directed violence and military force. On the other,
we find ourselves engaged at the same time in many forms
of peaceful competition with other Communist states. In
the world of the late 1940s and early 1950s, when our
adversary seemed monolithic, such a situation would have
been unimaginable. Yet today it would be as shortsighted
for us to fail to seek peaceful accommodation with the
Soviet Union and its East European allies — where possible
— as it would be for us to neglect our deterrent against
Moscow’s improved strategic systems.

Thus the circumstances in which we must formulate our
military policies have changed greatly from those of the
early 1960s. But our goals remain the same. Fundamen-
tally, what is at issue today, as it was a decade ago and as it
will be a decade from now, is the kind of world in which
we and others wish to live. This nation made the decision
at the end of World War II to base its own security on the
principle of collective defense. It was done with the hope of

Where We Stand / f

helping to create, in keeping with the principles of the
United Nations Charter, a world in w hich even the smallest
state could look font ard to an independent existence, free
ro develop m its own way, unmolested by its neighbors,
and free of fear of armed attack or political domination by
the more potterful nations.

Some years later, in a world already familiar with the
gap between Communist promise and Communist reality,
and with Communist aggression as well, w c tried to achiet e
this same high purpose by joining other like-minded nations
in a senes of mutual defense treaties By die close of 1955
this system of interlocking alliances had grown to include
the Rio Treat)’ in the Western Hemisphere, NATO in
Europe, SEATO and ANZUS in the Ear East, and the
bilateral mutual defense agreements with Korea, Japan, the
Republic of China and the Philippines Altogether, more
ihan forry sovereign nations bound themselves together m
an effort to defend their freedom and prevent the further
extension of Communist influence and hegemony through
subversion and aggression

Looking back over the history of the last twenty years,
I believe it is fair to say that this system of alliances has
substantially achieved its purpose. Though the record is
less than perfeer, the outward thrust of Soviet and Red
Chinese pressure has been generally contained and the in-
dependence of even the smallest member of the alliances
his been preserved. Beyond the immediate objective of
these alliances, our adherence to a policy of collccuv c de-
fense has helped us to pursue our ultimate goal the crea-
non of a world order in which all states, small and large.

6 J The Essence of Security

aligned and unaligncd, can preserve their independence and
live in peace.

Collective security has had its price, however. The mem-
bers of the alliances have had to support large and costly
military forces for many years, with small prospect of an
early reduction. Moreover, we and some of our allies have
had to pay a particularly high price, both in lives and in
wealth, for the alliances’ achievements, first in Korea dur-
ing the early 1950s and again in Southeast Asia. Clearly the
American people have a right to ask: were these achieve-
ments worth their cost, particularly in terms of their ulti-
mate contribution to die peace and security of our own
nation?

I believe they were. This is a question which can never
be answered conclusively. There is no way by which we
can determine with certainty what the world and this
country would have been like today had we not based our
national security policy on the principle of collective de-
fense during the last twenty years. However, we do know
that the course of unarmed isolationism and attempted neu-
trality which we followed prior to World War II was in
the end far more costly in lives and property.

While it is conceivable that we could return to a policy
of isolationism, it must be recognized clearly that today it
could no longer be die unarmed isolationism of the 1930s.
In an age of nuclear weapons and intercontinental missiles,
when other nations have the capability to strike our home-
land a devastating blow with perhaps only a few minutes
of warning, no such easy option is granted us.

Where We Stmd / 7

Nevertheless, one might argue that we could still re-
nounce all nur mutual defense Treaties, pull back our mili-
tary forces to our own soil, and build a “Fortress America”
so powerful as to deter virtually any encmj or combination
of enemies from deliberately attacking our temtorj . Then
\v c could deal with the rest of the world on a strictly arm's-
length basis

The crucial point to recognize is tliat it would be an
entirely different world from the one we now Inc in — and
an entirely different United Stares as well Without de-
pendable fnends or allies we surely would have to main-
tain a larger military establishment than at present We also
would hate to reorient our industry and commerce to
achieve a maximum degree of economic sclf-suffiacnc> .
with a lower standard of living for our people and con-
siderably less economic freedom Most important, w e w ould
be hung tn a far more uncertain and dangerous world, one
m which our influence o\er the course of events would be
greatly diminished It would be a world in which the
pressures for proliferation of nuclear weapons and the
means of dcliv enng them w ould be much stronger than they
are today In time, we could find ourscls es literally isolated,
a “Fortress America” snll relam ely prosperous, but sur-
rounded by a sea of struggling, envious and unfriendly na-
tions — a situation hardly likely to strengthen our own state
of peace and security. Isolationism is obuously an undesir-
able alternative to our continued involvement m the respon-
sibilities of w odd affairs and collectiv e defense.

This does nor mean that we must assume the role of

8 / The Essence of Security

world policeman. But it does mean that we must be willing
to continue to support those international arrangements
which help to preserve world peace, alleviate conflicts
among nations, and create conditions for economic and so-
cial progress in the less developed areas of the world.

We must hope that our allies and friends also will recog-
nize that the new international situation is far too com-
plicated and threatening for abandonment of collective
defense. The principle that every nation should feel secure
in its independence is still valid. It cannot easily be ignored
in one part of the world and sustained in another. The con-
tribution of individual nations to this goal can take many
forms, and there is admittedly no precise way to determine
any nation’s fair share of the burden. We, on our part, must
recognize that some of our friends and allies simply do not
have the economic strength or industrial capacity to equip
and maintain the armed forces they legitimately need; in
fact, a few cannot even meet their military payrolls from
their own resources. It is in the common interest that they
receive the necessary financial and material support not
only from the United States but also from the other more
prosperous members of the alliances. There have been some
encouraging moves in that direction, but too great a share
of the burden is still being carried by the United States.

The position that other nations should do more in the
common cause does not mean that I think we should do less,
at least at the present time. The severe cuts in the Ad-
ministration’s economic and military aid request made by

Where H'c Stxnd / ji

the Congress in 1967 were a serious setback to the entire
collectn c defense effort.

We must remember that the non -Communist world is
made up of sovereign states which have widely differing
histories, capabilities and political and economic onenra-
tions. Even where these states subscribe in principle to the
policy of collective security, wc should not expect that
there will always be unanimity as to how and by whom
that policy should lie implemented in any particular situa-
tion. Neither is it realistic for us to expect them all to share
our scale of priorities Each lias its o« n particular set of
local problems and national aspirations, and each will insist
on judging for itself whit is best for its people Wc must
try to guide them in arcis where our joint interests are
involved* and try ro ensure that what aid we give them is
effectively used from both their point of view and ours
Wc do not and must not attempt to force our views upon
them by coercion with trade and aid, for this would hardly
achieve the coopcranon needed for the collective defense of
the free world

I cannot help but feci, however, that most of the resrnc-
nons and fund reductions imposed by the Congress on the
national security program in 1967 reflect a much more
fundamental problem. That is 2 growing unwillingness to
recognize that if the policy of collective defense is to work,
we must be ready to pay our share of the price. If this
unw illmgness is, in fact, on the increase, then I liehcve that
our nation will be much berter off if we confront the real

to / The Essence of Security

issue directly. That issue is whether or not we should con-
tinue to base our national security on the policy of collective
defense. There is nothing to be gained, and much to be lost,
by paying lip service to the policy and then failing to sup-
port the programs necessary to carry it out.

In the 1960s the bipolarity we knew in the earlier post-
World War II period has begun to disintegrate. Solid
friends and implacable enemies are no longer so easy to
label, and labels which did useful service in the past, such
as “free world,” “Communism” and “Iron Curtain,” seem
increasingly inadequate as descriptions of contending in-
terests within and between blocs. New bonds of common
interest are slowly being built across what were thought to
be impenetrable lines of demarcation. Yet this trend toward
a more pluralistic world, which is in our interest and con-
sistent with our national philosophy, is still only tentative.
Within many nations the factions which see advantage in
constructively exploiting this tendency are still weak. Part
of our job must be to make it evident to potential enemies
that this more pluralistic world would have rewards for
them also.

But to make our case wc must still face them with the
prospect of encountering a well-coordinated alliance of
nations willing to do battle to preserve their rights to inde-
pendence and self-determination. Despite the emerging of
new powers and the decline of overly simplified Cold War
ideologies, collective security arrangements remain a neces-
sity. The strong must still make commitments to defend
the weak.

Where We Stand / u

That the American people have become somcuhar dis-
illusioned and wear}' with the problems of the rest of the
world is understandable. For many years we base home a
Urge siurc of the burden of world peace and security, and
of assistance to the developing nations But we must never
forger that of all the peoples in the world we hate the most
at stake. The existence of an open, outward -looking, hu-
mane Society in the United States is affected b) the vitality
of similar societies elsewhere Our burden is Urge because
our capacity is large — so much larger, in fact, than that of
any other nation as to make comparisons misleading For
better or for worse — hopefully, for l>cttcr— tve arc pre-
eminent, with all the obligations which accrue to leader-
ship Thus, despite the rapidl\ increasing complexity of
the world of the late 1960s and the foreseeable 1970s, and
the difficult choices it will pose for us, w c must not abandon
in weariness or disillusionment our international role, or
neglect to face up to new and old alternant es
For my part, I am convinced thar we must and wall judge
unacceptable all the alternant cs to a connnucd dedication
to collective defense I also am convinced that embracing
the obligations of international leadership need not force us
to div err badly needed resources from the improv ement of
American domestic society Our resources arc sufficient, if
wisely allocated and if we hate the will, to meet the needs
of the weak and underprivileged both at home and abroad
For the sake of our security and our well-being, we can
afford no less.

CHAPTER TWO

Where Interests Collide

Over the years since World War II the United States
has developed a range of world- wide interests unique in
history. One reason is that the United States has learned
much about the realities of nuclear weapons, including their
limitations as an instrument of policy. Some of those real-
ities may at last have impressed Soviet leaders, particularly
since the confrontations over Berlin and Cuba in 1961 and
1962. In any case, they have not repeated such direct and
perilous challenges to fundamental United States interests.

Nevertheless, American and Soviet interests still collide
at many points in the world. And there is no comforting
assurance as to the direction in which Red China’s tremen-

Where Interests Collide / ij

dous potential will Ijc applied as she begins to recover from
interna) chaos. Both Communist governments, moreover,
have continued at this writing to supply massive aid to
Hanoi in its operations against South Vietnam.

Obviously our inreresr in world-wide political and mili-
tary developments ts nowhere keener than on the subject
of goals and policies in the two great centers of Com-
munism. Realism bids us both to seek understanding with
them and to recognize that, in some areas at leasr. thej
remain fundamentally hostile to us despite their own differ-
ences. These differences, how c\ cr, already ha\ e had a pro-
found effect on their bilateral relationship, on other Com-
munist nations and, therefore, on the place of Communism
jn world affairs

The fissures have shown no sign of healing It may be
that no influence short of a change of rcgtmc cither in
China or in the UJS S U can restore even a facade of unity
across the Communist w orld Peking’s challenge to Moscow
has generated greater Chinese militancy, and at times
greater nulirancy in Soviet policies as well

The stndcm behavior of the Red Chinese has caused
Soviet leaders to confront the fact that they, too, have an
interest in stability that must be balanced off against con-
tinued adherence to revolutionary ideology. Both strands
arc present in Soviet policy. The task of cream c statesman-
ship for the West will l»e to move .Moscow further in con-
structive directions while at the same time vv orking to break
down the wall which insulates Peking from outside in-
fluence.

Our own interests have not fared badlv as a result of divi-

74 / The Essence of Security

sions in the Communist world. Both die Soviet Union and
mainland China have suffered serious setbacks in Latin
America, Indonesia and in the developing world in general.
Each is devoting a large share of its energies to its dispute
with the other. Partly as a result of Moscow’s greater
concentration on domestic affairs and partly because of
Peking’s defiance, the governments of Eastern Europe have
been able to assert increasing independence. We may
hope they will begin to establish better relations with the
West. Over the long run these bonds may ease the defense
problem for the entire NATO area. For the near future,
however, though Europe is comparatively free from overt
threats or pressures, a strong NATO will still be required
to keep it that way.

Aside from the purely nationalistic side of the Sino-Soviet
dispute, a large number of ideological issues have emerged.
Some are unimportant to the United States. The dispute as
to how the “world revolution” is to be achieved is of
compelling importance to us, however. Since 1962 the
Soviets generally have taken a less militant approach than
Red China, although they continue to affirm their support
for what they call wars of national liberation. The Soviet
leadership demonstrated some restraint in its support for
North Vietnam and in support of insurgencies in some
other areas of the world. In Latin America, for example, it
apparently opposes Fidel Castro’s policy of externally sup-
ported armed insurrection, choosing instead to compete for
influence over the indigenous Communist parties and seek-
ing to expand Soviet presence and relations with Latin-

Where Interests Collide / if

American gmcmmcius By contrast. Red Chinese leaders
enthusiastically endorse Castro’s efforts to apply their doc-
trine of “peoples wars M

There remain, nevertheless, many problems between the
United States and the Soviets, some old and some new.
Independently of their disagreement with the Chinese, or
perhaps partly because of it, the Soviet leaders continued to
support Hanoi in Southeast Asia That nm* have been one
reason they were less willing to cooperate with the United
States in other areas of policy, such as the mutual reduction
of forces in Europe or arms-control measures. It seems
likely that relations with the USSR could be improv ed
once Hanoi's aggression in Southeast Asia is terminated
But until these elements arc stabilized, we must do our best
simultaneously to preserve the constructive aspects of our
relationship with Moscow and guard against counting on
improvements before they occur

To mention restraint in Soviet policy tow an! Southeast
Asia is not to suggest that Moscow ’s support of North Viet-
nam is unimportant in historical contest Its support has
done much to sustain Hanoi's effort in South Vietnam
Similarly, the Soviet Government must carry* a major share
of the responsibility for setting off the short but explosive
war in the Middle East in the summer of 1967, and sub-
sequently for making the achievement of a Middle Eastern
settlement more difficult.

At the same time. Moscow's record over the last half-
dozen years includes us initiative to bring about peace
between India and Pakistan in 191S5, and its generally con-

1 6 / The Essence of Security

structive behavior during the Laotian crisis and the Sino-
Indian border dispute. The Soviet leaders also have been
willing to incur the sustained invective of the Chinese in
their negotiations with us for an agreement to halt the pro-
liferation of nuclear weapons. These are only a few exam-
ples, but they serve to point up the mixture of conflict and
cooperation in the U.S.S.R.’s relations with the non-Com-
munist world.

The Soviets recently have projected an image of in-
creased activity, determination and new strategic direction,
especially toward developing a capability for flexible mili-
tary response. There are some signs that they are develop-
ing the forces required to give them limited mobile military
capability to meet some types of contingencies beyond the
land areas of the Communist countries. A fully flexible
response remains outside their immediately foreseeable
capabilities, however.

Soviet developments in strategic weapons such as anti-
ballistic missiles give evidence of a continuing search for
security through more advanced arms. But the military ap-
plications of Soviet power, such as recently increased naval
activity in the Mediterranean, appear to be primarily diplo-
matic gestures. In that specific case it may be aimed at
redressing political losses sustained from Moscow’s inability
to prevent the Israeli victory over the Arabs. Soviet naval
craft in the Mediterranean, including missile cruisers and
submarines, have effectively shown the flag, but they have
done so without the base structure and support facilities
that would be necessary for sustained military operations.

Where Interests Collide / rj

These political ami military’ dc\ elopments were accom-
panied by a suitttantial increase in Russia's defense expendi-
tures, as projected in the budget announced for 1968. The
increase of at least 2 2 billion rubles, after allowance for
higher prices, bookkeeping changes and perhaps a military
pay increase, reflected the continued expansion of the
Sosiet defense clTort. Analysis of budget data for 1968 in-
dicated that this diversion of additional funds to military
purposes might force a slowdown in imcstmcm in agricul-
ture, industry and possibly housing Apparently Smiet
leaders are willing to risk a lower growth rate in industrial
plant and gamble on good growing w cathcr in order to meet
their defense needs

It was not entirely clear how the additional resources for
defense were to be distributed among the \anous military
programs. Of one thing we could be sure the cost of the
Vietnam conflict to the Soviet Union would be consider-
ably higher in 1968 than m 1967 unless the lc\cl of com-
bat could be sealed down or ended It is uncertain, how c* cr,
what effects the increased budgetary Icsels will have on
Soviet military and foreign policy for the near future The
Soviet leaders clearly seek a military posture which will
gn c them capabilities mure closely in balance w ith our aw n,
and the growth of our own power os er the last several
years has no doubt been a factor in their decisions Tor the
next few years, howeser, their abilmcs to support sub-
stantial forces rebuild) distant from their own frontiers
will continue to be quite limited.

Recent cstnts in China reflect none of the careful cal-

1 8 / The Essence of Security

eolation of the Soviet Union, of course. Since mid- 1966 the
continuing turmoil of the Great Cultural Revolution has
demonstrated how wrong wc were earlier in our belief that
the leadership was strong and united. Even after the govern-
ment in Pelting sought to calm the hordes of young Red
Guards it had unleashed, civil disturbances and armed
clashes continued, many of them involving the Army. In-
dustrial production and transportation were disrupted. The
educational process was almost completely halted, and gov-
ernment administration at all levels was severely weakened.

It now seems clear that what occurred was an attempted
revolution within a revolution. Concerned about flagging
revolutionary spirit in the government and party, and con-
cerned that future generations would lose sight of his purist
Communist goals, Mao Tse-tungset out to conduct a massive
housecleaning. When existing mechanisms proved inade-
quate, he fashioned a new instrument, the Red Guards, and
set them loose against the Communist bureaucracy, the very
people responsible for the administration of the nation’s
day-to-day affairs. The failure of the Great Leap Forward,
clearly evident by 1960-61, apparently convinced the bu-
reaucracy that a more pragmatic approach to China’s eco-
nomic problems was urgently needed. This approach neces-
sarily relaxed some of the dogma favored by Mao and
caused a return to quasi-capitalisric techniques such as re-
establishment of private agricultural plots in the rural areas
and material incentives for the industrial workers in the
cities.

Whatever the short-term results, China may be years

Where Interests CoIhJe / /p

from full rcco\cr>\ Mao damaged the Communist bureauc-
racy, but neither destroyed it nor transformed it into an
effective instrument of policy. Administrative control over
the nation was seriously weakened, but tltc Red Guards
proved unable to displace die bureaucracy. The Army was
called upon to restore order in the dries and ro maintain
production schedules in the facroncs, in the mines and even
on the farms Nevertheless, clashes between the contending
factions continue at this writing, the economy and the
educational system arc still »n disarray, once again, Mao
has demonstrated that it is easier to create etiaos than to
re-establish order There still has been no clear ev idcncc of
the reunited leadership which is the first essential for repair
of the damage wrought bv the upheaval

The damage was bv no means (united to the domestic
scene, for the Cultural Resolution also dealt Red China’s
foreign policy a severe blow Its prestige among the Com-
munist panics has declined precipitous!), in most instances
to the advantage of the Soviet Union Its relations with the
rest of the world arc at low ebb Indeed. Red China has
managed to antagonize most nations with which it still
maintains diplomatic relations Most of its ambassadors have
been recalled 10 Peking as part of the Great Cultural
Revolution, while the Chinese diplomatic missions abroad
hive marked time ineffectively. Sooner or later the present
leadership w ill pass from the scene, but it is by no means
certain uhar such a development will mean to the present
alignment of the world. A more moderate regime in China
could result in caster relations with the outside world, m-

20 / The Essence of Security

eluding the United States, or it could mean a rapproche-
ment with the Soviet Union, or possibly both. Even the
second alternative might prove to be of advantage to the
outside world if an increasingly moderate viewpoint pre-
vails within the Soviet leadership, in that the Soviets could
serve as a moderating influence on Red China. If a more
militant approach is adopted by the Soviet Union, however,
a rapprochement with China could confront the United
States and its allies with a new and even more severe threat.

In any event, mainland China, with a population ap-
proaching 800 million, a military establishment of some
three million and a growing stockpile of nuclear weapons,
will be a power to be reckoned with in the 1970s. In its
relations with the Peking government, the United States
must emphasize the common interest we share in avoiding
war and hope that a dialogue can be started. Meanwhile,
we must continue to try to deter direct or indirect pressures
against China’s neighbors.

Both China and the Soviet Union have deep and conflict-
ing interests in Southeast Asia, an area which also tests the
viability of the collective defense policy of the United
States. Here, close to Red China, lie a number of small, non-
Communist states, each crying in its own way to maintain
freedom and independence. The confusion and discord
between the Communist capitals is well illustrated in this
region. The U.S.S.R. is nominally joined with Peking in
supporting Hanoi. Each, however, is seeking to prevent
the other from gaining dominance in Hanoi, while North

Where Interests Collide / st

Vietnam probably wishes to fall under the dominance of
neither

Thus it is possible that Moscow, Peking and Hanoi all
disagree as to what the fururc shape of Southeast Asia
should be. These disagreements may hate allowed Hanot,
while pursuing ns drive to conquer the South, to play of!
the Soviet Union against China for material assistance
Titus, while a trend tow ard poly centrism among the Com-
munist nations is generally welcome, there will he cases,
as in Vietnam, where it may intensify our problems rather
than case them

At this tune the Soviet leaders may believe that North
Vietnam will be an outpost for their more pragmatic form
of Marxism and serve as i hudcr hemming in the zealots
of Peking If this is their calculation, they are playing a
dangerous game an ulrimate Communist victory in South
Vietnam would erode the position of man) of the non-
Commumst states in Southeast \sia. and the chief bene-
ficiary would he China, not the Soviet Union. Such a
victory' would be seen as a triumph for Chinese militancy
and as vindicating that position m the ideological dispute
with the Soviet Union In contrast to North Korea, which
borders both. Southeast Asia is separated from the Soviet
Union by the great land mass of China It is unlikely,
therefore, that the Soviets could long maintain a special
position in that area m defiance of China

But our real concern is not over which of the two m a Is
wilt emerge demurunt. Our concern is that no great power

2z / The Essence of Security

dominate the area. The United States has no desire to
compete with either the Soviet Union or Red China for
hegemony in Southeast Asia, or indeed to achieve any spe-
cial position there. This is not to say that we are indifferent
to what transpires on the other side of the Pacific Ocean.
Whether we like it or not, we are a Pacific power: our West
Coast borders on the Pacific and our fiftieth state lies
halfway across it. Moreover, we have important historical
ties and commitments to many of the nations in the Western
Pacific. We have therefore a vital strategic interest in that
area, an interest we cannot ignore.

The turmoil in Vietnam, however, has tended to ob-
scure the substantial progress being achieved elsewhere in
the area. Time purchased at heavy cost is being put to
good use by the non-Communist Asian states. There is a
growing appreciation of the need for collective action to
meet common problems, and although the conflicts slowed
the Mekong Development Project, it and other regional
efforts such as the Asian Development Bank and the Asia
and Pacific Council are moving forward. There is a grow-
ing network of cooperation among the area’s non-Commu-
nist nations, both functional efforts focused on common
problems and broader ties with more ambitious goals. We
can hope these efforts eventually will provide the region
with the collective political, economic and military strength
that will enable it to determine its own destiny.

Our role in this process will be particularly important.
American policy toward Southeast Asia and the Southwest
Pacific area must blend concern and restraint as we help

Where Interest; Collide / a $

the East Asian nations to build among themselves the true
security that flows from economic and social progress

Meanwhile, outright and overt aggression b) large con-
ventional forces is unlikely in the region Internal conflict
fostered by socioeconomic stagnation, communal disputes
or externally supported. Communist-nurtured subversion,
arc the more plausible threats

The special situations in TliaiLand and Laos are particu-
larly illustrative, in view of their relationship to Vietnam.
Both of these nations are threatened b} externally sup-
ported insurgencies They also art threatened by the de-
bilitating economic, social and political condmons common
to much of the area Yer the Thai Government has assumed
a leading role in regional coojicranon It w as instrumental
m the creation of the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations and vv as a prime mover m fostering closer politi-
cal consultation and action among neighboring nations The
Tims’ own counterinsurgency effort against the guer-
rillas m the northeastern provinces has improved measur-
ably. Tlus effort, consisting of combined military-civilian
police operations, is designed both to quell the externally
supported Insurgency and to begin to eradicate the factors
which facilitate its growth poverty, illiteracy and long
stars of minimal contact with the people by the centra!
government.

Internal conflict is greater in Laos than in Thailand
primarily because external involvement there is greater.
The North Vietnamese Army has continued at this writing
to infiltrate south through Laos, and North Vietnamese

24 / The Essence of Security

troops reinforce the Pathet Lao against the Royal Lao
Government. North Vietnam has also provided substantial
military assistance to the insurgents. But for a number of
reasons, including continued international support for the
ipdz Geneva Accords and our economic and military assist-
ance to the government of Laos, Prime Minister Souvanna
Phouma has been able to maintain a partially successful
defense against North Vietnamese aggression.

I believe that over the long run a truly independent,
neutral Southeast Asia would best serve the interests of all
the nations involved. It would remove one source of strife
between the outside world and the Communist nations,
and among the latter as well. Moreover, it would create the
kind of environment required for the rapid development
of the region’s basically rich natural resources.

Farther north in the East Asian crescent, the North
Koreans have not hesitated to remind South Korea that she
lives in the constant shadow of renewed aggression. During
the summer of 1967 and in early 1968 there was a sub-
stantial increase in the North’s harassment and intrusion
along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the dual ob-
jectives of discouraging the South’s assistance to Vietnam
and of undermining its political and economic stability.
Thus far, efforts by the North to organize a guerrilla
base in the interior have been frustrated. Nevertheless,
we must anticipate that North Korea’s aggressive activi-
ties, both along the Demilitarized Zone and farther south,
will persist and perhaps intensify in the months ahead. The
North Koreans are fully aware that as the Republic of

Where tntcrais Collide /

Korea grow* stronger, their chances of achieving control
over the entire peninsula diminish.

The Republic of China continues to be confronted by
Peking’s long-held ol> jeeme of seizing Taiwan. Mainland
China's developing nuclear capability’, combined ■with its
military modernization programs, has caused increasing
concern on Taiwan Our bilateral mutual defense treaty
for the defense of Taiwan remains essential therefore to
the security' of the Republic of China
fn South Asia tensions fine slowly abated, though the
two giants of Communism luve pursued acme policies
in the area While issues remain in dispute between India
and Pakistan, we hope they will continue to seek peaceful
settlement In April, 1967, the Untied States announced a
new military’ supply policy for the subcontinent, under
which its previously suspended gram aid was fonnall>
terminated and advisory and supply missions were formally
withdrawn No lethal weapons arc being sold by the
United Srates to either India or Pakistan, ami w e have urged
both governments to avoid an arms race, to scale down the
stre of their armed forces and to allocate the savings to
essential economic and social programs

Pakistan’s early search for arms resulted in relatively
small deliveries from the Middle Past and Indonesia and ex-
tensive purchases from commercial sources in Western Eu-
rope. More important. Red China provided large quantities
of small arms, vehicles, tanks, artillery and fighter aircraft,
though later she scaled the supply’ down to spare parts only
fn tliis respeer, China’s objectives in the subcontinent appear

2.6 / The Essence of Security

to remain the same: to establish herself as a major political
influence in the area, exploiting Pakistan’s and India’s dif-
ferences to her own advantage, preventing or delaying the
development of a strong India, and minimizing United
States and Soviet influence. ( Cf 2 - w *0

The Soviet Union, on the other hand, has tended to
concentrate its efforts on India, and only recently has
begun to cultivate its influence in Pakistan. In addition to
pledging a net commitment of $300 million to India’s
Fourth Plan, the Soviet Union has undertaken to meet a
portion of her defense requirements as well. On the whole,
however, Moscow gives the impression it is aware of the
dangers inherent in renewed warfare between India and
Pakistan and is exercising restraint in military assistance.

Among all the persistent and recurrent issues that burden
international affairs, none is thornier than relations in the
Atfiddlc East. When war briefly erupted in June, 1967, for
the third time in twenty years, it left behind many old
problems and created some new ones. The United States
supported the efforts of the United Nations and used every
other available channel to encourage fruitful negotiations.
We are continuing our efforts to limit arms deliveries to the
area. At the outbreak of the most recent hostilities, the
United States suspended all arms shipments; unfortunately,
the Soviet Union did not act in similar fashion, and the
rapid resupply of Communist arms to the U.A.R., Syria,
Iraq and Algeria after the war served only to increase
tensions and fears. The Soviet Union’s position on Middle
Eastern questions, its increased naval presence in the

Where Intercut Collide /

Mediterranean, ns intervention in the conflict in Yemen
and efforts to reduce or supplant Western influence gen-
erally have further contributed to the instability in the
region.

The recent increase in Soviet resources, diplomacy and
propaganda directed to the Middle East underscores the
importance Moscow attaches ro tins strategically significant
area at the crossroads of Ana, Africa and Europe In re-
cent years the Soviet Union has sent a considerable portion
of its total economic and military aid to the region The
Middle Ease accounts for a large percentage of all foreign
technicians being trained in the Soviet Union Clearly the
area stands high on the Soviet scale of politico-military
priorities However, the Soviets probaW> do nor plan
to acquire formally permanent bases in the Mediterranean
and the Arab world Indeed, we believe thar those coun-
tries which have potentially useful facilities, primarily the
U.A U , S)na, ^e^^en and Algeria, would resist granting
full base rights on political grounds

To the north, Greece, Turkey and Iran continue to fulfill
important forward defense roles, standing between the
Soviet Union and the warm-water ports and oil resources
of the Middle East. Substantial military assistance to them
over the past two decades by the United States his un-
doubtedly been a factor in discouraging Soviet military
adventures in the area. Our grant mihtar) assistance to Iran
ts now* being replaced by military sales, bur Greece and
Turkey probably will continue to need grant military aid
for some time During 15x17 VS aid to Greece w as partially

28 / The Essence of Security

curtailed following assumption of power by the military
junta which overthrew the elected government in April.

The Soviet thrust into the Mediterranean and Middle
East region also embraces the northern part of Africa. In-
creasing Soviet activity in North and Northeast Africa
represents a potentially serious threat to the equilibrium of
both that area and Western Europe. The Maghreb and
the Horn are the areas of Africa of most immediate stra-
tegic concern to die United States — -North Africa covering
the southern dank of NATO and the Horn standing at the
approaches to the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. Soviet poli-
cies in these areas seem designed to reduce or eliminate
Western influence generally, to disrupt NATO and West-
ern security interests, and to increase Soviet political, mili-
tary and economic influence.

The Arab-Israeli crisis and the continued Soviet-sup-
ported Algerian military build-up have added to the basic
instability of the area. The delivery of over $200 million
worth of Soviet equipment to Algeria since 1965 continues
to alarm her moderate neighbors. While the present Al-
gerian regime maintains friendly diplomatic relations with
its North African neighbors, there is apprehension in the
area about her military potential. Our own limited military
assistance helps Algeria’s neighbors, Morocco, Tunisia and
Libya, to maintain a minimum defensive capability.

Closer to home, we have thoroughly reoriented our mili-
tary policy toward Latin America over the past seven
years. Our purpose was to bring that policy into line with
the nature and scope of the real threat to the south of us.

irbrre Interests ColUJe j

Wc now* recognize formally the low probability of con-
ventional attack on any American state from outside the
hemisphere As a result we see no requirement for Latin -
American countries to support large conventional military
farces, particularly those requiring expensive ami sophisti-
cated equipment. Outlays for such forces are an unwar-
ranted diversion of resources from the more urgent and
important t2$ks of economic and social development. Our
military assistance policy, therefore, is designed to limit
their purchases to replacement items of a kind and at a
cost that will improve internal security and at the Same
time not hinder economic development

The absence of a major external threat to this hemisphere
also has helped us to focus the energies of the Rio Treaty
nations toward the widelj shared problem of armed in-
surgency Indeed, another major change in our policy re-
flects the need to deal with the threat of externally inspired
insurgencies This threat has been a major challenge to
some of our Latin-Amencan allies, and we have toed to
help them by providing training, advisers and assistance in
the equipment and techniques of count ermsurgency. Not-
withstanding the cncouragcmenr and sponsorship of such
insurgency by Cuba, our allies until now have been able
to deal with it effectively wherever n has surfaced. The
death of Lmesto Che Guevara in Bolivia in the fall of 1967
dealt a sev ere blow to the hopes of the Cistrotre rev olti-
tionaries.

But counterinsurgency alone is an inadequate response
to this problem. Removal of the causes of human suffering

%o / The Essence of Security

and deprivation is essential if stable political institutions
are to flourish free of the threat of violent revolution. This
recognition has been the inspiration of the Alliance for
Progress, in "which we seek with the Latin-American
nations to achieve a peaceful economic and social revolu-
tion within a generation.

Not surprisingly, most Latin Americans aspire to peace-
ful revolutions in their societies and their personal well-
being. Since they seek improvement without violence, and
soon, they need the relatively modest military and economic
help we are providing. Without it, prospects for realizing
their aspirations would be slim indeed. Still, we should
not forget that it is the Latin Americans themselves who are
making the principal contribution toward fulfillment of
the Alliance for Progress, a contribution involving both
hard work and willingness to accept difficult social and
political responsibilities. The Alliance is, in fact, a partner-
ship, and it is to be hoped that our mutual efforts in this
hemisphere ultimately will yield the freedom and prosperity
which we seek for all the countries of the Alliance.

Essentially this brief review has focused on the capabili-
ties, goals and motives of those who challenge us, and on
the points of confrontation, major and minor. Happily, in
that context I have not mentioned many of the leading
nations of the world, including Japan. For Japan, well on
the way to becoming the third leading industrial power,
has steadily strengthened her political institutions. She has
become increasingly active in international affairs, especially
in Asia. Though her Constitution is still interpreted as pre-

Where Interests Collide / jr

eluding the dispatch of armed forces abroad, security ques-
tions arc I icing discussed today with greater realism and
candor- Her new national defense plan provides for mod-
ernization of Japanese defense forces, Except for pawing
reference here, I have set Europe aside for consideration
later.

I deliberately closed this review with a bncf look at
Larin America For it seems to me that the continent to
the soutli typifies the challenge of our times. Its vast re-
sources and its vital population provide the raw material
for electrifying progress, its great povertv and social in-
justice contain the seeds of violent revolution Here, free
of the threat of external aggression, the line is clcarlv drawn

au-mucAN t-renAB*

KXTV7 DELHI
EXTE NSION SEfiVtC*-

CHAPTER THREE

NATO and the Forces of Change

Of all the links in our chain of collective security, the
North Atlantic Alliance is the most visible and the most
dramatic. As it approaches its twentieth anniversary in 1969,
the NATO Treaty has maintained relative peace in West-
ern Europe through a period of severe strain and, at times,
acute danger. Its success can be measured far beyond stand-
off deterrence alone, for in recent years the immediate
external threat to Europe has declined. But in its place
have developed perhaps inevitable internal pressures, the
hire of a less onerous burden, the temptation to give short-

3 *

NATO and the Forces of Change /

term political and economic issues priority over long-term
security.

NATO was created on April 4, 1949, in the wake of
repeated and reckless Soviet adventures, including the
blockade of Berhn The government in Moscow had proved
unwilling to let its ideology compete freely in the polincal
marketplace after World War If In effect, the Soviet
master plan sought to exploit economic dislocation and
the war weariness of Europe and the United States It
called for aggressive subversion and military pressure,
which always contain the threat of direct conflict NATO
established the deterrent balance, committing the United
States totally to the defense of Europe — and vice versa
Along the way, the original alliance of twelve members
was joined from the southern flank of Europe lij Greece
and Turkey and also by the Federal Republic of German}

It is understandable that fundamental questions have been
raised about the Alliance in recent jeare. After all, it seems
a long time since that summer of 1961 when Chairman
Khrushchev' threatened to end with a stroke of his pen the
Western presence m Berlin. It was a period of high tension
as the Red Army, with a supposed srrength of 160 dm*
510ns, seemed to tower over Eurupc. The United States
and its allies held firm during that summer, and the winter
and spring that followed, and slowly tensions sulrsided

Since then access to West Berlin has remained relatively
undisturbed. Tensions between East and West have been
related, Europe has been a relatively stable and peaceful
continent. Stno-Sovice differences widened the opportunity

54 / The Essence of Security

for the East European states to assert their independence of
Moscow, and their political and trade relations with the
West have become freer. On the whole, then, NATO’s
first two decades included great change in the area. Gen-
erally, in both military and political terms, these develop-
ments favored the Western nations, encouraging a growing
sense of security.

Indeed, some authorities in both the United States and
Western Europe seem to believe that the military threat
to Western Europe has largely disappeared. Some may
even suppose that the Soviet Union has mellowed to the
point that NATO’s utility as a military alliance has all
but vanished. As a result, despite an enormous increase in
European wealth, defense budgets generally receive a de-
creasing share of that wealth.

Clearly, the thawing process between East and West is
well advanced on both sides of the Elbe. But this process
does more than open up new opportunities to reduce
tensions in Europe. It also confronts us with new problems,
particularly as to how best to maintain our unity during
the period when old positions, attitudes and relationships
are being re-examined. If the Alliance is in trouble, it may
well arise from an exaggerated sense of security.

We have made abundantly clear our desire to build
bridges between East and West, to heal the division of the
continent, including Germany. The United States will
grasp every real prospect for better relations with the
countries of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. We are
committed to the reconciliation of Europe and have no in-

NATO anj the Forcer of Change / 3 f

flexible preconceptions about how it ought to proceed If
changes in the Alliance should become necessary, this
country’s willingness to discuss than is a matter of record.
Our basic objectives in Western Europe are simply to
ensure the security of that area against aggression and to
further its economic growth and political stability. On this
point there certainly can be no disagreement between us
and the European NATO partners

Even on the most optimistic assumptions about the fu-
ture, however, the Soviet Union will remain 3 great mili-
tary power. We must expect that it will continue to prol>e
for power vacuums, created by political or military weak-
nesses, into which it can project its political influence with
only moderate nsk to itself Certainly the Soviet Union
shows no sign of intending to reduce its own defense
expenditures, on the contrary, it has increased them Re-
gardless of present intentions, a gov emment w uh such great
military pow er at its disposal can become hostile and dan-
gerous overnight. Europe has obvious attractions to the
Soviets, of course After the United States, Western Eu-
rope today represents the greatest aggregation of economic,
political and ideological strength in the world The six
Common Marker nations, plus the United Kingdom, have
by themselves a total population, military manpower pool
and Gross National Product considerably larger than those
of the Soviet Union They have been able to provide that
people with 1 much higher standard of living than that of
the USS.R or any of its allies There can be no question
that Soviet domination of this area would be a grave threat

36 / The Essence of Security

to our own security. If the Western allies were ever to
dismantle the effective military strength of the Alliance
or abandon its cohesive spirit and the cooperation of its
military forces, they would create temptations for Soviet
probings and adventures which nothing in Soviet history
suggests it is prepared to withstand.

What we need to counterbalance the military capabili-
ties of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact countries
is a full range of military strength which we can only secure
and maintain by collective effort. The military role of
NATO therefore will remain as necessary in the foreseeable
future as it has been in the past. The progress that has
been made in the relationships between East and West is
due in large part to the West’s having maintained a strong
defense posture. Certainly this' is no time to give it up.

On this matter wc are in full agreement with thirteen
other NATO members. The position of France is well
known. In 1967 France withdrew her military forces from
the unified NATO commands and set out to go her own
way. At her request we and the other NATO allies withdrew
our military forces from France, a move made with re-
markable efficiency and at moderate cost. NATO Head-
quarters have now been relocated in Belgium and military
units and supplies principally in the United Kingdom and
the Federal Republic of Germany. Notwithstanding the
impact of the French action, and I do not wish to mini-
mize its importance, the unity of the fourteen members
and the vitality of NATO as a military organization remain
intact.

NATO and the Forces of Chinee f yj

Indeed, a most significant step forward from tlie Ui».
point of slew was taken at the meeting of the NATO
Giuncil of Ministers in December, 1967 For the previous
ax years the United States had emphasized two major
themes to its allies The first was realism — the need to
match NATO's strategic assumptions ant! plans with its
dr facto budgets and forces The second was the need for a
balance m NATO’s and the Warsaw Pact's over-all capa-
bilities. We argued that only the existence of a balanced
force could convince an aggressor be} ond doubt that what-
cvcr effort he might make— <>r perhaps even more im-
portant, threaten to make — would be matched bv the
Alliance We emphasized that onl> under these condinons
would it become obvious to the Soviet Union that mili-
tary force of any kind or at any level w ould be useless as a
means to secure political ends

The principal subject of this debate was the proper re-
sponse to levels of aggression below an unlimited strategic
nuclear attack on our homelands The discussion centered
on the extent to which we should plan on the use of nu-
clear weapons as the main response to non-nuclear aggres-
sion. The United States has been firmly of the view that
the threat of an incredible action ts not an effective de-
terrent The political leaders of the West arc all well aware
of the dangers involved in the use of tacncal nuclear weap-
ons, and so arc the leaders of vhc Warsaw Pact nations
Soviet leaders probably would not believe that the nanons
of NATO would agree to run the great risk of vising
nuclear weapons to counter a limited form of political or

38 / The Essence of Security

military aggression. Therefore they might be tempted to
probe or experiment with limited aggression in some crisis
situations. They would hope to exploit possible differences
among the NATO leaders in their assessments of the
nuclear risks, and thus to achieve piecemeal what they could
not accomplish by any sudden, massive, all-out attack on
the Alliance.

Some NATO members have questioned the advisability
of even discussing the U.S. view that nuclear forces arc
not a universal deterrent. It has been suggested that airing
this view publicly would impair the deterrent. The answer
to that is clear. First, it is both dangerous and deceptive to
suppose that the Soviets are less intelligent than we, or that
they would be disposed to believe in a bluff that we our-
selves questioned. Second, experience has proven the con-
trary. Despite years of discussion of the appropriate
deterrent and strategy against various forms of Soviet pres-
sure and attack, the deterrent, in fact, lias not been weak-
ened. The Soviets have not been emboldened by our dis-
cussion to risk adventures against NATO. On the contrary,
they appear to have understood clearly that it is not the
American commitment to the defense of Europe that is
in question, but only the most effective means of carrying
it out.

I do not believe there is any doubt in the Soviet Union
over the U.S. commitment to NATO. The simple fact is
that the United States intends to continue its contribution
ro the forward defense of NATO with all the energy the
task requires. It is our very readiness to keep this commit-

NATO and the Forres of Change / _jp

ment which has led us, repeatedly, to urge NATO rn de-
velop the forces and the plans for times of need which
would he acceptable to all the governments of the Alliance.

Now other members of the Alliance have acknowledged
the need to plan for a broader range of contingencies than
a massive attack against NATO launched with little warn-
ing Much more remains to be done, both in the Alliance's
Nuclear Planning Group of Defense Ministers and tn the
regular planning agencies of the Alliance But the essen-
tial first step has been taken a new political directive on
strategy and forces has been adopted and a new force plan-
ning system has liecn created to carry it our

In the meantime, the pnmc need of NATO continues
to he grearer flexibility m its force structure It has now
faced up to the mipomnee of providing a full range of
capabilities, rather than simply relying on the nuclear
portion of its arsenal Its mam tasks for the future are the
establishment of mlisnc goals for its forces and giving
them sufficient flexibility, so we can adjust rapidly to pre-
serve a balance of over-all military strength w ith the War-
saw Pact.

NATO will continue to need strong strategic nuclear
forces, of coarse, and must retain an effective theater — or
tactical — nuclear capability. We have already deployed a
large number of nuclear weapons to Europe. This great
theater capability should deter the Warsaw Pact from any
attempt to seize Western Europe by an all-out conven-
tional attack or by using its own tactical nuclear \v capons.

As suggested earlier, however, the Alliance faces its

4° / The Essence of Security

most challenging military problems, both for the short run
and for the longer term, outside the nuclear field. Although
there has been much improvement during the past seven
years, NATO still does not have well-balanced conven-
tional forces. There also are important qualitative deficien-
cies in the training, equipment and supplies of European
NATO forces. Correction would bring the very greatest
returns in effective combat strength for relatively modest
additional expenditures. A still greater deficiency in the
European NATO forces is the lack of an adequate mobili-
zation base. The United States has made great progress in.
raising the combat readiness of its own reserve forces and
in providing the means for their movement. It is most ur-
gent that our European allies do likewise; the flexibility
of NATO’s force structure would be greatly improved.

This problem as to what constitutes adequate conven-
tional forces stems in part from old misconceptions. Many
Americans and Europeans, military and civilian, became
accustomed years ago to the idea that the Warsaw Pact
nations could overwhelm NATO’s non-nuclear defenses
in a surprise attack with nearly one hundred divisions
against Germany alone. Even more devastating assaults,
according to this assumption, could be opened with a mini-
mum of warning. In the face of such expectations, the
possibility of providing an adequate non-nuclear defense
for NATO within realistic and acceptable defense budg-
ets seemed hopeless.

When it was decided nonetheless in the early days of
NATO to maintain substantial combat-ready ground

NATO and tbe Forces of Change / 41

forces, most members compromised. They presided nearly
a. million men in ready units, bur economized on their
training, equipment and supplies. Some countries allowed
1 heir mobilization biscs to wither away in deference to tbe
cosr of rheir ready forces Still, there was doubt that these
ready forces could really cope with massive aggression from
flic Warsaw' Pact The alternatives for NATO, it was
supposed, were cither to give up territory and even accept
defeat or to threaten the use of nuclear weapons from the
very outset of an attack despite the rules of escalation.
This misconception of the available choices developed in
part from nv ercsriniates of Pact strength
The Department of Defense in 1961 began to rake a
harder look at these estimates of the non-nuclear balance
We discovered that the actual size of the Soviet ground
forces was substantially less than had been estimated previ-
ously Their strength turned out to be closer to a million and
3 half than to two million men. Next, we recognized that
large-scale surprise attacks by the .Soviets were perliaps
the least likely possibility m new of the pooT readiness of
many Soviet divisions Now vie can question whether
massive attacks, without at least some warning, arc feasible
at all It seems likely that the twenty -two small U.S.SR
divisions in the Soviet Zone of Germany and Poland repre-
sent the only truly combar-ready Soviet divisions that
could immediately threaten Central Europe. Using the same
realistic assessments that we apply to our own forces, we
believe that ir would take weeks rather than days to re-
inforce than with the combat -ready and fully equipped

4 2 / The Essence of Security

units required for an all-out attack. Moreover, we are no
longer convinced that the East European forces, which con-
stitute more than half of die Warsaw Pact’s combat-ready
strength in Central Europe, would be fully effective in an
unprovoked attack on NATO.

These considerations do not indicate that NATO now
can match the mobilized strength of the Warsaw Pact
armies, or that the Alliance can afford to relax its efforts.
Rather, they suggest that we can achieve an important non-
nuclear option in Europe at no higher cost, and perhaps
at less cost, than we are now incurring. More precise assess-
ment of our opponents’ capabilities has made it clear that
members of NATO can no longer contend that an impres-
sive non-nuclear capability is beyond their reach. On the
contrary, it is fully feasible.

On the whole, NATO already has the manpower in its
active forces to deal with opposing combat units, even when
East European divisions are counted. The deficiency is
not in what we call M-day manpower — the forces available
when mobilization is required. It lies rather in the need for
improvement in deployment of NATO’s forces in Ger-
many, and the fact that not all of the supposedly combat-
ready units are adequately trained, equipped and supplied.
Conscription in many of die NATO countries is for eight-
een months or less, and conscripts enter their M-day units
with too little basic training. The rario of support personnel
to combat and combat-support personnel is frequently too
low.

Once NATO’s existing ready units are, in fact, combat-

NATO and ike Fcrccs of Cban^e /

ready, our greatest need will l»e in mobihzable forces that
will permit NATO cl carl) and demonstrably to keep pace
with the Warsaw Pact in the deployment of reinforce-
ments. This is particularly true in Central Europe. Even
after we discount exaggerated estimates of the Warsaw
Pact’s deployment rate, the Soviets still possess a substan-
tial capability for reinforcement It is clear that NATO
should luxe a better mobilization base from which to cre-
ate cotmrcrw eights against Sonet pressure. The European
members of the Alliance wall hate to l>ear a realistic share
of the burden.

The United States can more than double us combat-
ready divisions in Central Europe within several weeks
of mobilization The Belgians, the Dutch, the British and
the Canadians can prov ide a small number of units to this
crucial area during the same period. It would appear that
in an all-out race to deploy units, NATO could hold its
own at various points along the way We could still suffer
a worrisome manpower disadvantage during at least one
period of the competition, although not one which we
should view as hopeless. This and other deficiencies can
be corrected, and if NATO wants to make credibly dear
to the Soviets that no threatened build-up will cause the
Alliance to waver, it can do so For the short run, this
means NATO should maintain existing combat-ready
ground forces and provide them with more extensive train-
ing, better equipment and larger stocks of combat con-
sumables.

For the longer run, the United States his urged other

44 / The Essence of Security

members to increase the number, training, supply and readi-
ness level of their reserve divisions. The number required
in Central Europe to match the Pact’s capability is not
beyond our reach, especially if U.S. reinforcements are
counted as part of the total. Significantly, all the required
reserve divisions, with their full equipment on hand,
would cost no more than a few combat-ready divisions.

I am aware, of course, that the cost of maintaining com-
bat-ready troops is substantial. Nonetheless, the defense
efforts of some of our allies, measured against their over-
all economic strength, could well be increased. But even
without increased defense expenditures a better allocation
of resources within the Alliance would accomplish much
of what I have been recommending.

NATO naval forces in some areas, for example, already
exceed our needs. Several hundred million dollars might
well be shifted to more urgently needed ground forces over
the next five years. It may also prove possible to shift some
resources from our air forces to ground-force improve-
ments. Our NATO aircraft already have a good inherent
non-nuclear capability and' are qualitatively superior to
those of the Warsaw Pact. The chief improvements wc
require are in modern ordnance, non-nuclear training for
air and ground crews, and shelters to protect the aircraft
from non-nuclear attack while on the ground.

Future expenditures on tactical air forces could thus be
held to modest limits. Savings would be available here for
improvements in ground forces, though, only if we avoid
buying unnecessary follow-on aircraft that do not produce
benefits to justify their higher costs.

NATO and the Farce i of Change / ^ j

Should NATO decide to adopt this realistic approach of
balancing off Pact capabilities, what effect* w ould it hat c
on the posture and deployments of the Alliance 5 Hrsf, we
Would be keying the size and composition of our combat-
ready forces to comparable, forward- deployed forces of
the Warsaw* Pact- Second, we would l*c setting mobiliza-
tion and deploymcnr schedules in accord with what the
Pact, and specifically what the U.S S R , could do Third,
we would be introducing into our planning the land of
fl exibility required by our new- political guidance, that is,
we would hate plans both for different levels of mobiliza-
tion and for the whole range of military contingencies
F ourth, u lule approximate) > the same ov cr-nll commitment
of forces from members of the Alliance would s«H be
necessary, the mix of on-thc-hnc divisions, combat-ready
deplorable units and reserve forces could become much
mare flexible than it is today As Pact deployment changed,
so could ours.

The United States would expect to play a major role in
supporting this approach We would continue to maintain
an adequate strategic nuclear deterrent for flic Alliance as
a whole, to keep sufficient tactical nuclear forces within
the European theater, to deploy whatever U.S air and
ground forces w ere required on the ground in Europe for
non-nuclear defense, and to keep av ailable substantial rein-
forcements to supplement a European mobilization

We recognize that our large military presence in Europe
has acquired a particular symbolic importance in the cj cs
of some of our allies. Accordingly, we hav e continued to
maintain in Europe for nearly twenty years powerful air

46 / The Essence of Security

and ground forces at a high state of readiness, as well
as substantial Europe-oriented forces in the Continental
United States, in order to give allies and potential enemies
concrete evidence of our commitment to NATO.

I, for one, believe that the willingness of the United
States to fulfill its obligations can no longer be in question,
quite apart from the number of U.S. troops on the ground
in Europe. I do not believe the Russians arc in any doubt
on this score. Therefore we should continue to maintain
in Europe only those forces for which there is a clear mili-
tary requirement.

In saying this, I must also point out an anomaly in Eu-
ropean attitudes which we have discussed frankly with our
allies. Some Europeans oppose any reduction in U.S. forces
deployed in Europe, but at the same time disclaim responsi-
bility for meeting the balance-of-payments deficit caused
by such large-scale deployments. Such an anomaly cannot
continue. Serious deficits suffered by countries as a direct
result of stationing troops abroad in the common effort
should be a matter of both concern and cooperative as-
sistance on the part of their allies. Wc should welcome sug-
gestions from them on how to meet this pressing problem,
since its solution cannot be postponed.

In our planning we must also take greater account of
changing technological, financial and military circum-
stances. There is, for one thing, the growing U.S. asset of
strategic mobility. It will enable us soon to move forces
from the Continental United States fast enough to match
substantial build-ups by the Warsaw Pact. The Pact nations

NATO and tkc Forets of Change

w otdd be hard put to keep abreast if the European allies
could mobilize and deploy— beyond existing levels— forces
equal to those the United States could move to Europe in
sixty days with its projected 1972 airltfi capability. In
other words, a large and rapid U.S reinforcement should
be taken into account in future NATO planning.

Some countries may feel that whatever the US capa-
bility for strategic mobility, other commitments such as
Vietnam, and the possibility that U 5 forces may become
tied down in distant places, nuke these calculations and
forecasts unrealistic That sort of skepticism would be
misplaced

We understand very clearly, just as President Roosevelt
did dunng World War II. thu Europe has a pnmary claim
on our military resources By 1972 our strategic mobiliry
will l>e such that we still could meet a very demanding
schedule of deployments to Europe even if our forces were
widely* dispersed US strategic mobility, therefore, will
be able in the foreseeable future to make a major new con-
tribution to European defense of a kind hitherto associated
only' with forces permanently on the ground

In my view-, NATO has important military’ functions to
perform for many* years tn come I am conv meed, how ev er,
that it can perform them satisfactorily only if it becomes
more flexible, first m the means at its disposal and second
in its plans for using them

PART II

The Tools of Power

CHAPTER POUR

Mutual Deterrence

IN a complex and uncertain world, die gravest problem
that an American Secretary of Defense must face « that
of planning, preparation and policy against the possibility
of thermonuclear w ar. Ir is a prospeer tint most of mankind
understandably vv ould prefer not to contemplate, for tech-
nology has notv circumscribed us all with a horizon of
horror that could dwarf any catastrophe that has befallen
man in his more than a million years on earth.

Man has lited now for more than twenty tears in what
we liave come to call the Atomic Age, What we sometimes
overlook is that every fnturc age of man will be an atomic

S 2 / The Essence of Security

age, and if man is to have a future at all, it will have to be
one overshadowed with the permanent possibility of ther-
monuclear holocaust. About that fact there is no longer any
doubt. Our freedom in this question consists only in facing
the matter rationally and realistically and discussing actions
to minimize the danger.

No sane citizen, political leader or nation wants thermo-
nuclear war. But merely not wanting it is not enough. We
must understand the differences among actions which in-
crease its risks, those which reduce them and those which,
while costly, have little influence one way or another. But
there is a great difficulty in the way of constructive and
profitable debate over the issues, and that is the exceptional
complexity of nuclear strategy. Unless these complexities
are well understood, rational discussion and decision-making
arc impossible.

One must begin with precise definitions, The cornerstone
of our strategic policy continues to be to deter deliberate
nuclear attack upon the United States or its allies. We do
this by maintaining a highly reliable ability to inflict un-
acceptable damage upon any single aggressor or combina-
tion of aggressors at any time during the course of a strategic
nuclear exchange, even after absorbing a surprise first strike.
This can be defined as our assured-destruction capability .

It is important to understand that assured destruction is
the very essence of the whole deterrence concept. We must
possess an actual assured-destruction capability, and that
capability also must be credible. The point is that a potential
aggressor must believe that our assured-destruction capa-

Mutual Deterrent* / fj

briny is in fact actual, and that our will to use it in retaliation
to an attack is in fact unwavering The conclusion, then,
is clear, if the United States is to deter a nuclear attack on
itself or us allies, it must possess an actual and a credible
assured-destruction capability.

When calculating the force required, v c must be con-
servative in all our estimates of both a potential aggressor's
capabilities and hts intentions Security depends upon as-
suming a worst plausible ease, ami has ing the ability to cope
with it. In that esentuahty we must be able ro absorb the
total weight of nuclear attack on our country— «n our
retaliatory forces, on our command and control apparatus,
on our industrial capacity, on our cities, and on our popula-
tion— and still be capable of damaging the aggressor co the
point that lus society would be simply no longer stable in
twentieth -century* terms Thar is what deterrence of nu-
clear aggression means It means the certainty of suicide to
the aggressor, not merely to Jus military' forces, but to his
society as a whole.

Let us consider another term first-strike capability. This
ss a somewhat ambiguous term, since it could mean simp!)
the ability of one nation ro arrack another nation with nu-
clear forces first. But as it is normally used, u connotes
much more the elimination of the attacked nation’s re-
taliatory second -strike forces. This is the sense in which
it should be understood

dearly, first-strike capability is an important strategic
concept The United States must not and will not permit
itself ever to get into a position in which another nation, or

54 / The Essence of Security

combination of nations, would possess a first-strike capa-
bility against it. Such a position not only would constitute
an intolerable threat to our security, but it obviously would
remove our ability to deter nuclear aggression.

We arc not in that position today, and there is no foresee-
able danger of our ever getting into that position. Our
strategic offensive forces are immense: 1,000 Minuteman
missile launchers, carefully protected belowground; 41 Po-
laris submarines, carrying 656 missile launchers, with the
majority hidden beneath the seas at all times; and about 600
long-range bombers, approximately 40 percent of which
are kept always in a high state of alert.

Our alert forces alone carry more than 2,200 weapons,
each averaging more than the explosive equivalent of one
megaton of TNT. Four hundred of these delivered on the
Soviet Union would be sufficient to destroy over one-third
of her population and one-half of her industry. All these
flexible and highly reliable forces are equipped with devices
that ensure their penetration of Soviet defenses.

Now what about the Soviet Union? Does it today possess
a powerful nuclear arsenal? The answer is that it does.
Does it possess a first-strike capability against the United
States? The answer is that it does not. Can the Soviet
Union in the foreseeable future acquire such a first-strike
capability against the United States? The answer is that it
cannot. It cannot because we are determined to remain
fully alert and we will never permit our own assured-
destruction capability to drop to a point at which a Soviet
first-strike capability is even remotely feasible.

Mutiul Deterrence / jj

Is the Soviet Union seriously attempting to acquire a fim-
strike capability against the United States* Although this is
a question we cannot answer with alisolute certainty, we
belies c the answer is no In any cvcnr, the question itself is
— in a sense — irrelevant, for the United States will main-
tain and, where necessary, strengthen its retaliatory forces
so thar, w hates cr the Soviet Union’s intentions or actions,
we will continue to have an assured-destruction capability
vss-i-s is their society

Hut there is another question that is most relevant. Does
the United States, then, possess a fim-srnke capability
against the Soviet Union* The answer is that we do not
We do not have this capability, not because we have
neglected our nuclear strength, on the contrary, we have
increased it to the point that we possess a clear superiority
over the Sov ict Union We do not possess first-strike capa-
bility against the Soviet Union for precisely the same reason
that they do not possess it against us Quite simply, w e have
both built up our second-strike capability — in effect, re-
taliatory power — to the point that a first-strike capability
on either side has become unattainable.

There is, of course, no way by which the United States
could have prevented the Soviet Union from acquiring its
present second-strike capability, short of a nuouc pre-
emptive first strike in the t9jos. The fact is, then, that
neither the Soviet Union nor the United States can attack
the other without being destroyed in retaliation, nor can
cither of us attain a first-strike capability' in the foreseeable
future, further, both the Soviet Union and the United

$6 / The Essence of Security

States now possess an actual and credible second-strike
capability against one another, and it is precisely this mutual
capability that provides us both with the strongest possible
motive to avoid a nuclear war.

The most frequent question that arises in this connection
is whether or not the United States possesses nuclear supe-
riority over the Soviet Union. The answer is that we do.

But the answer, like everything else in this matter, is
technically complex. The complexity arises in part out of
what measurement of superiority is most meaningful and
realistic. Many commentators on the matter tend to define
nuclear superiority in terms of gross megatonnage, or in
terms of the number of missile launchers available. By both
these standards the United States docs have a substantial
superiority over the Soviet Union in the weapons targeted
against each other. But it is precisely these two standards of
measurement that are themselves misleading. Instead, the
most meaningful and realistic measurement of nuclear capa-
bility is the number of separate warheads that can be de-
livered accurately on individual high-priority targets with
sufficient power to destroy them.

Gross megatonnage alone is an inadequate indicator of
assured-destruction capability since it is unrelated to sur-
vivability, accuracy or penetrability, and poorly related to
effective elimination of multiple high-priority targets. There
obviously is no advantage in overdestroying one target at
the expense of leaving undamaged, other targets of equal
importance. Further, the number of missile launchers avail-
able is also an inadequate indicator of assured-destruction

Mutual Deterrence / 57

capability since many of our launcher* will carry multiple
warheads.

Hut using the realistic measurement of rhe number of
warheads available, those which could l>e delivered with ac-
curacy and effectiveness on appropriate targets in the
United States or Soviet Union, the United States currently
possesses a superiority over the Sonet Union of at least
three or four to one. Furthermore, we will maintain su-
periority by these same realistic criteria for as far ahead as
we can realistically plan

One point should he nude quite clear, however, our
current numerical superiority over the Soviet Union in
reliable, accurate and effective warheads is both greater than
we had original!) planned and more than we require. In
the larger equation of security our superiority is of limited
significance, for even with our current superiority, or
indeed with any numerical superiority realistically attain-
able, rhe blunt, inescapable fact remains that ihc Soviet
Union, with its presenr forces, could still effccrii ely destroy
the United Stares, even after absorbing the full weight of
an American first strike

I have noted that our present superiority is greater than
we had planned. How* this came about is a significant illus-
tration of the intrinsic dynamics of rhe nuclear arms nee.

In ipdi when I became Secretary of Defense, the Soviet
Union had a very small operational arsenal of intercon-
tinental missiles However, it did possess the technological
and industrial capacity to enlarge that arsenal very sub-
stantial!) over the succeeding several years. We had no

fS / The Essence of Security

evidence that the Soviets did plan, in fact, fully to use that
capability. But, as I have pointed out, a strategic planner
must be conservative in his calculations; that is, he must
prepare for the worst plausible case and not be content to
hope and prepare merely for the most probable.

Since we could not be certain of Soviet intentions, since
we could not be sure that they would not undertake a
massive build-up, wc had to insure against such an even-
tuality by undertaking a major build-up of our own
Minuteman and Polaris forces. Thus, in the course of
hedging against what was then only a theoretically pos-
sible Soviet build-up, wc took decisions which have re-
sulted in our current superiority in numbers of warheads
and deliverable megatons. But the blunt fact remains that
if we had had more accurate information about planned
Soviet strategic forces, wc simply would not have needed
to build as large a nuclear arsenal as we have today.

Let me be absolutely clear. I am not saying that our
decision in 1961 was unjustified; I am saying that it was
necessitated by a lack of accurate information. Further-
more, that decision in itself, justified as it was, in the end
could not possibly have left unaffected the Soviet Union’s
future nuclear plans.

What is essential to understand here is that the Soviet
Union and the United States mutually influence one an-
other’s strategic plans. Whatever their intentions or our
intentions, actions — or even realistically potential actions —
on either side relating to the build-up of nuclear forces
necessarily trigger reactions on the other side. It is pre-

Afutujl Deterrence /

ciscly this action-reaction phenomenon that fuels an arms
race

In strategic nuclear weaponry the arms rjee imohts a
particular irony. (Jnlihe any other era in military history,
a substantial numerical superiority of weapons today does
tine effectively translate into political control or diplomatic
leverage. While thermonuclear power is almost incon-
ceivably awesome and represents virtually unlimited poten-
tial destructiveness, it lias prov cn to be a limited diplomatic

instrument Its uniqueness lies in the fact tint it is at the
same time an all-powerful weapon and a very inadequate
weapon.

The fact that the Soviet Union and the United States
can mutually dcstros one another regardless of v ho strikes
first narrow's the range of Soviet aggression which our
nuclear forces can effectively deter liven with our nuclear
monopoly in the carl\ postwar period, we were unable to
deter the Sovicr pressures against Berlin or their support of
aggression in Korea Today our nuclear supenorm docs
not deter all fun ns of Soviet support of Communist insur-
gency’ in Southeast Asia What all of this has meant is thar
we, and our allies as well, require substantial non-nuclear
forces in order to cope with levels of aggression thir mas-
sive strategic forces do not, in fact, deter

This has been a difficult lesson both for m and for our
allies to accept. There is a strong psy chological tendency
to regard superior nuclear forces as a simple and unfading
solution to security and an assurance of victory* tinder anv
set of circumstances Whar must be understood is that our

6o / The Essence of Security

nuclear strategic forces play a vital and absolutely neces-
sary role in our security and that of our allies, but it is an
intrinsically limited role. Therefore we and our allies must
maintain substantial conventional forces, fully capable of
dealing with a wide spectrum of lesser forms of political
and military aggression. This is a level of aggression against
which the use of strategic nuclear forces would not be to'
our advantage, and thus a level of aggression which these
strategic nuclear forces by themselves cannot effectively
deter. One cannot fashion a credible deterrent out of an
incredible action. Thus security for the United States and
its allies can only arise from the possession of a range of
graduated deterrents, each of them fully credible in its
own context.

In recent years the Soviets have substantially increased
their offensive forces. We have been watching and evalu-
ating this very carefully, of course; clearly the Soviet
build-up is in part a reaction to our own build-up since the
beginning of the 1960s. Soviet strategic planners un-
doubtedly reasoned that if our build-up were to continue at
its accelerated pace, wc might conceivably reach in time a
credible first-strike capability against the Soviet Union.

That was not, in fact, our intention. Our goal was to
ensure that they, with their theoretical capacity to reach
such a first-strike capability, would not outdistance us. But
they could not read our intentions with any greater ac-
curacy than wc could read theirs. The result has been that
we have both built up our forces to a point that far exceeds
a credible second-strike capability against the forces we
each started with. In doing so neither of us has reached a

Munal Deterrence / it

first-strike capability And the realities of rite situation
licing what they are— -whatever we believe their intentions
to be, and n hares er they believe our intentions to be — each
of us can deny the other a first-smle capability in the
foreseeable future.

How can we lie so confident that this is the case 5 How
can we l>c so certain that the Soviets cannot gradual!) out-
distance us, either by some dramatic technological break-
through or simply through our imperceptibly lagging
liehind, for whatever reason reluctance to spend the req-
uisite funds, distraction with military problems elsewhere,
faulty' intelligence, or simple negligence and naivctp All
of these reasons and others have been suggested by some
commentators m this countn who fear that we arc, in fact,
falling behind to a dangerous degree

Hie answer is simple and straightforward We arc not
going to permit the Soviets to outdistance us, because to do
so w mild be to jeopardise out \ tty viability as a nation No
President, no Secretary of Defense, no Congress of the
United States of whatever political persuasion is going to
permit this nation to tale that risk We do not want a
nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union, primarily be-
cause the action-reaction phenomenon males it foolish and
futile But if the only way tn prevent the Soviet Union
from obtaining first -strike capability ov er us is to engage in
such a race, the United States possesses in ample abundinct
the resources, the technology and the will to run faster in
that race for whatever distance is required.

IVhat we would much prefer to do u to come to a
realistic and reasonably riskless agreement with the Soviet

62 / The Essence of Security

Union which would effectively prevent such an arms race.
We both have strategic nuclear arsenals greatly in excess
of a credible assured-destruction capability. These arsenals
have reached that point of excess in each case for precisely
the same reason: we each have reacted to the other’s
build-up with very conservative calculations. We have, that
is, each built a greater arsenal than cither of us needed for
a second-strike capability, simply because both wanted to
be able to cope with the worst plausible case.

Since we each now possess a deterrent in excess of our
individual needs, both of our nations would benefit from a
properly safeguarded agreement first to limit and later to
reduce both our offensive and defensive strategic nuclear
forces. We believe such an agreement is fully feasible since
it is clearly in the interests of both our nations. But formal
agreement or not, we can be sure that neither the Soviets
nor we are going to risk the other’s obtaining a first-strike
capability. On the contrary, we can be sure that we are
both going to maintain a maximum effort to preserve an
assured-destruction capability. ^ K

It would not be sensible for either side to launch a maxi-
mum effort to achieve a first-strike capability. The intelli-
gence-gathering capability of each side being what it is,
and the realities of lead-time from technological break-
through to operational readiness being what they are,
neither of us would be able to acquire a first-strike capa-
bility in secret.

Now let me take a specific case in point. The Soviets are
now deploying an antiballistic-missile system. If we react
to this deployment intelligently, we have no reason for

Mtittu! Deterrence / 6j

aljrm The system does not impose any threat to our ahihrj
to penetrate and inflict massive and unacceptable damage
on the So\ ier Union In other \v ords, it docs not now* affect
in any significant manner our assured -destruction capa-
bility It does not impose a threat because we have already
taken the steps necessary to assure thar our land-based
Mintiteman missiles, our submarine-launched new Poseidon
missiles and our strategic bomber forces have the necessary
penetrarion aids They constitute a force of great magni-
tude, strong enough to survive a Soviet attack and pene-
trate the Soviet ABM deployment

Now* let us consider an issue tint has receiv ed much atten-
tion recently the question of whether or not we should
deplo) an ABM system against the Soviet nuclear threat *
To l>cgm v ith. this is not in anj sense a new issue We has e
had both the technical possibility and the strategic desir-
ability of an American ABM deployment under constant
review since the late 1950s While vie have substantial!)
improved our technolog)’ in the field, it is important to
understand that none of the s) stems at the present or fore-
seeable state of the art would provide an impenetrable
shield over the United States Were such a shield possible,
we would certain!) want it and we would certainly build it.

At this point, let me dispose of an objection that b totally
irrelevant to this issue. It has been alleged that we are
opposed to deploying a large-scale ABM sjstetu because it
would curry the heavy price tag of $40 billion. Let me make
it v cty clear thar the $40 billion is not the issue If w c could

* Apjwdn I ilocritxn wfxr thrrsti ijnriw in APU lyatn

nvijrht t*e drpJoj rJ.

% / The Essence of Security

build and deploy a genuinely impenetrable shield over the
United States, we would be willing to spend not only $40
billion, but any reasonable multiple of that amount that
was necessary. The money in itself is not the problem; the
penetrability of the proposed shield is the problem.

There is clearly no point in spending §40 billion if it is
not going to buy us a significant improvement in our
security. If it is not, then we should use the substantial
resources it represents on something that will. Every ABM
system that is now feasible involves firing defensive missiles
at incoming offensive warheads in an effort to destroy them.
What many commentators on this issue overlook is that
any such system can rather obviously be defeated by an
enemy’s simply sending more offensive warheads, or dummy
warheads, than there are defensive missiles capable of dis-
posing of them. This is the crux of the nuclear action-
reaction phenomenon. Were we to deploy a heavy ABM
system throughout the United States, the Soviets would
clearly be strongly motivated to so increase their offensive
capability as to cancel out our defensive advantage.

It is futile for each of us to spend $4 billion, $40 billion
or 5400 billion — and, at the end of all the spending, at the
end of all the deployment, at the end of all the effort, to
be relatively at the same point of balance on the security
scale that we are now. Actually, we have already initiated
offensive-weapons programs costing several billions in order
to offset the small present Soviet ABM deployment, and the
possibly more extensive future Soviet ABM deployments.
That is money well spent, and it is necessary.

Mvtiut Deterrence /

We should bear In mind, however, that It iv money spent
because of the action -reaction phenomenon. If we in turn
opt for heavy ABM deployment, at whatever price, we
can be certain that the Soviets will react to offset the
advantage w e would hope to gain.

It is precisely because of this certainty of a corresponding
Soviet reaction that the four prominent scientists who have
served with distinction as the Science Advisers to Presi-
dents Kisenhovver, Kennedy and Johnson, and the three
outstanding inen who have served as Directors of Research
and Knginccring to three Secretaries of Defense, have
unanimously recommended against the dcplojment of an
ABM system

But the plain fact of the matter is that we are now facing
a situation analogous to the one we faced in 1961 we are
uncertain of the Soviets* intentions At dial time we were
concerned about their potential offensive capabilities, now
we arc concerned about their potential defensive capabili-
ties The dynamics of the concern are the same. We must
continue to he cautious and conservative m our estimates,
leaving no room in our calculations for unnecessary risk
And at the same time, we must measure our own response
in such a manner that it docs not trigger a senseless spiral
upward of nuclear arms.

As I have emphasized, we have already taken the neces-
sary steps to guaranrec that our offensive strategic weapons
will be able to penetrate future, more advanced Soviet
defenses Keeping in mind the careful clockwork of lead-
time, we wBl be forced to continue that effort over the

66 / The Essence of Security

next few years if the evidence is that the Soviets intend to
turn what is now a light and modest ABM deployment into
a massive one. Should they elect to do so, we have both
the lead-time and the technology available to increase both
the quality and the quantity of our offensive strategic
forces, with particular attention to highly reliable penetra-
tion aids, so that their defensive efforts will give them no
edge whatever in the nuclear balance.

We would prefer not to have to do that, however. It is a
profidess waste of resources, provided we and the Soviets
can come to a realistic strategic arms-limitarion agreement.
We proposed U.S.-Soviet talks on this matter. Should this
effort fail, we arc fully prepared to take the appropriate
measures that such a failure would make necessary.

The point to keep in mind, however, is that if the talks do
fail, and the Soviets decide to expand their ABM deploy-
ment, our response must be realistic. There is no point
whatever in our responding by going to a massive ABM
deployment to protect our population when such a system
would be ineffective against a sophisticated Soviet offense.
Instead, realism dictates that we then must further expand
our sophisticated offensive forces and thus preserve our
overwhelming assured-destruction capability. The intract-
able fact is that both the Soviets and we would be forced
to continue on a foolish and unproductive course. In the
end it would provide neither the Soviets nor us with any
greater relative nuclear capability. The tune has come for
us both to realize that and to act reasonably. It is clearly
in our own mutual interest to do so.

The road leading from the stone age to the ICBM, though

Mutual Det err tree f 6j

it may have been more than a million years in the building,
seems to fuse run in a single direction. If one is inclined to
be cynical, one might conclude that man's history' seems to
be characterized not so much by consistent penods of peace,
occasionally punctuated by warfare, as by persistent out-
breaks of warfare, wearily put aside from time to time for
periods of exhaustion and recovery that parade under the
name of peace.

1 do not \ icw man’s history w irh that degree of cynicism,
but f do betiexe that nun’s wisdom m asoidmg war ts often
surpassed by his foil) m promoting it Howescr foolish
unlimited w ar maj hat c been in the past, it is now no longer
merely foolish, but suicidal as well It is said that nothing
can pres enr a man from suicide if he is sufficiently deter-
mined to commit it The question is w hat is our determina-
tion in an era when unlimited war will mean the death of
hundreds of millions and the possible genetic impairment of
a million generations ro follow 5

Man is dearly a compound of folly and xnsdnrn, and his-
tory is clearly a consequence of the admixture of those two
contradictor)* traits History lm placed our particular lives
in an era when the consequences of human folly arc wax-
ing more and more catastrophic in the matters of war and
peace. In the end, the root of man’s securin' does not he
in his weaponry, it lies in his mind. What the world re-
quires in its third decade of the Atomic Age is not a new
race tow ard armament, bur a new* race toward reasonable-
ness

We had all letter run ilut race.

CHAPTER FIVE

The Choice of Weapons

UP to this point I have spoken of weapons and men
under arms in terms secondary to policy: our place in the
world and the limits which the very appearance of nuclear
weapons imposed on the exercise of power. Superior
weapons are essential for survival in today’s world, but I
do not believe they guarantee our long-range security — a
point I intend to make in detail later. Yet certainly if
Americans are to debate intelligently the issues in world
affairs, as I believe they must, they need to understand their
government’s decisions on military strength and the forces
those decisions produced.

The Choice of H’ejpcns / 6$

When I entered the Defense Department tn 1 96k. sev-
eral basic considerations were becoming dear. We had to
improve our strategic nuclear forces even as we fit them
into our new undemanding of their place in the balance of
power, and we had to increase greatly the emphasis on our
conventional forces There seemed to be a consensus on
this general need for improvement in both areas, though
from time to time there was brisk debate over the specific
measures to achlev c it.

One of the first things we hid to do was to separate the
problem of strategic nuclear war from all other kinds of
war. Careful analysis revealed two important facts on this
point One was that strategic nuclear forces in themselves
no fongcr constituted a credible deterrent to the broad
range of aggression, if indeed they ever had in the past
The other was that we could not substitute tactical nuclear
weapons for conventional forces in the types of conflicts
that were most likely to involve us in the period of the
1960s.

We agreed, of course, that an effective tactical nuclear
capability was essential to our over-all strategy Hut we
also felt very strongly that the decision to employ such
nuclear weapons should not be forced upon us simply be-
cause we had no other means to cope with conflict We
recognized then what lus become so obvious now, that
there would inevitably lie many situations in w Inch it w ou!d
be neither feasible nor advisable to use tactical nuclear
weapons Hence, what we sought to achieve was a greater
degree of versatility in our general-purpose forces.

7 o / T/jc Essence of Security

This is not to say that consideration of the general nuclear
war problem had been overlooked prior to 1961, nor did
I and my associates clearly understand or even perceive
all of the aspects of this vasdy complex problem from the
very outset. Quite the contrary; many of the fundamental
concepts and insights which underlie our nuclear policies
and programs today were developed prior to 1961, and my
own views have matured and become more precise since
that time. Indeed, many of die issues which came to a head
in 1961 had been debated for years. All needed to be re-
solved so that we could get on with the job of reshaping
our strategy and our forces for the decade of the 1960s.
We still had to face squarely the fact that strategic nuclear
forces, no matter how versatile and powerful, do not by
themselves constitute a credible deterrent to all kinds of
aggression.

There was, of course, a deep and vivid awareness from
the very beginning of the nuclear era that a war in which
large numbers of atomic bombs were employed would be
far different from any ever fought before. In such a war
the potential battlefield would be the entire homelands of
the participants. Throughout the 1950s, and indeed since the
end of World War II, it had always been our capacity to
retaliate with massive nuclear power which was con-
sidered to be the deterrent against Soviet attack. It was
this tendency to rely on nuclear weapons as the universal
deterrent that helped contribute to the decline in our non-
nuclear limited-war forces, first during the lace 1940s and
then during the second half of the 1950s. By 1961 it was

The Choice of Weapons / 7/

becoming dear that large-scale use of mid ear weapons by
the West as a response to Sower aggression, other than an
unlimited attach, vvas not desirable. Therefore other types
of forces would have to he provided lioth to deter and. in
the event deterrence faded, to cope with conflicts at the
middle and low cr end of the spectrum.

Thus the time was npe for a general reassessment of our
military forces m relation to our national security policies
and objectives With regard to our strategic nuclear war
capabilities, our initial analysis impressed us with the need
for prompt action in three related areas him, our strategic
offensive forces were then full) adequate for their mission,
but it was apparent that our relatively unprotected missiles
and bombers would become exceedingly vulnerable to a
nuclear surprise attach once our opponent had acquired a
large number of operational intercontinental ballistic mis-
siles (ICnUs). Second, when that threat became a realit),
reliable w anting and quick response to w aming of a missile
attach would be crucial to the survival of our bomber
forces Third, improvements would hive to be made in our
command and communications systems if the strategic
offensive forces were to l>e kept continuously under the
control of the constituted authorities— -before, during and
after a nuclear attach.

There appeared to lie two basic approaches available to
us at the time (1) we could provide off crime forces to
be launched quickly after warning fawn the Ballistic Mis-
sile Catlv Warning System, which \ras then still under
construction, or (3) we could provide forces able to sur-

7 2 / The Essence of Security

vive a massive ICBM attack and then be launched in re-
taliation. As a long-term solution, the first approach was
rejected because of its great dependence on timely and
unambiguous warning. In the case of the manned bombers,
this uncertainty presented serious but not necessarily critical
problems. The bombers could be launched upon warning
and ordered to proceed to their targets only after the
evidence of an attack was unmistakable. But once launched
a ballistic missile could not be recalled. Yet unless it was
deployed in a form which gave it a good chance of sur-
viving an attack, it too would have to be launched before
the enemy’s missiles struck home.

Obviously, it would be extremely dangerous for every-
one if we were to rely on a deterrent missile force whose
survival depended on a hair-trigger response to the first
indications of an attack. Accordingly, we decided to ac-
celerate the shift from the first-generation ICBMs, the
liquid-fuel Atlas and Titan, to the second-generation solid-
fuel missiles, Polaris and Minuteman. The former types
were very costly and difficult to deploy in hardened under-
ground sites and maintain on a suitable alert status. We
knew that the Minuteman would not only be less expensive
to produce and deploy in protected sites, but would also be
considerably easier and less costly to keep on alert. Be-
cause of its unique launching platform, the submarine-
carried Polaris missile inherently promised a high likelihood
of surviving a surprise attack.

As these more survivable and effective Polaris and
Minuteman missiles entered the operational forces in large

T be Choice of Weapons / 7$

numbers during 1964-65, the older Rcguhtt, Adas and
Titan I types were phased out. And over the years as ad-
vancing technology produced new* models of the Minute-
nun and Polaris — •“models’* which represented 25 great an
advance over their predecessors as the B-yj over the B-47
— these too v ere promptly introduced Finally, a v cry large
missilc'pcnerration-aids effort was undertaken to make cer-
tain that wt could overcome any enemy defensive measures
designed to stop our missiles Despite the retirement of all
the Atlases and Titan I’s, the number of land-based ICBMs
increased from 28 at mid-1961 to 1.054 by 111^-1967 All
the planned 4 1 Polans submarines have now become opera-
tional, most with advanced-model Polans misnles-

Wnh regard to the manned bonders, it was clearly evi-
dent m 1961 that the number that could be maintained on
alert status was far more important than the total m the
inventors Until the Minutcman and Polans forces could
be deplov cd, sv e increased bv 50 percent the proportion of
the force maintained on fiftecn-msnute ground alert, the
warning nmc vie could expect from our Ilarl) Warning
Sv’stem

Tlie increase in the strategic bomber force to fourteen
wings of B-jas and two wings of B-yKs was completed m
1963. During this same period the force of older B-47
medium bombers was phased down, eventually bang retired
completely in 1966 on essentially the nmc schedule planned
by the previous Administration. In addition, a large and
very expensive R-5: modification program was undertaken.
Our goal was to extend the useful life of the later models

14 / The Essence of Security

well into the 1970s and enable them to employ low-altitude
tactics to improve their penetration capabilities against
enemy defenses. '

As a result of these changes, the number of nuclear
weapons in the alert force increased over threefold during
the period. Now that the Minuteman and Polaris forces
had been deployed, we first reduced and finally eliminated
the bomber airborne alert. As the weight of the threat con-
tinued to shift from bombers to missiles, we began to
modify the air-defense system, phasing out those elements
which became obsolete or in excess of our needs.

Wc also closely considered in 1961 the advisability of
deploying an active defense against ballistic-missile attack.
However, there were widespread doubts even then as to
whether the Nilce-Zcus system, which had been under de-
velopment since 1956, should ever be deployed. Weighing
all the pros and cons, we concluded in 1962 that the best
course was to shift development of the system to a more
advanced approach and take no action to produce and
deploy it at that time. We then stepped up our exploration
of the entire problem of detecting, tracldng, intercepting
and destroying ballistic missiles. It was from these efforts
that we have since drawn much of the technology incor-
porated in our present ballistic-missile defense concepts.

Finally, we undertook an extensive program to improve
and make more secure the command and control of our
strategic offensive forces. Among the measures was the
establishment of alternate national command centers. These
included some which would be maintained continuously in

The Choice of IVcjpcmj / 7^

the air so that the direction of all our forces would not
have to depend upon the survival of a single center. Steps
taken to improve the various Command and communica-
tions systems included, for example, provision for the air-
borne control of bomber, Minutentm and Polaris
launchings These were all forged into a new integrated
National Military Command System
Many of the tasks we set for ourselves seven years ago
have been successfully accomplished Hut the situation
which we foresaw then is now well upon us The Soviets
luxe, in fact, acquired a large force of ICB.Ms installed tn
hardened underground silos As the prev »ous chapter em-
phasized, neither the Soviet Union nor the United States
can now attack the other, even b) complete surprise, with-
out suffering missive damage in retaliation Each side has
achieved, and will most likely maintiin over the foresee-
able future, an actual md credible scomd-srnhe capability
jgamsr the ocher It u precise h this mutual capability to
destroy one another and, conversely, our respective in-
ahdity to prevent such destruction that provide us both
with the strongest possible motive to avoid a strategic
nuclear war. The prospect that China eventually may ac-
quire a credible strategic nuclear system is adding a new
dimension to these fundamental corni derations, of course
It is an element constantly in the minds of those charged
with projecting the political and military mean* of our
safety and sun iv a! in the years ahead

I believe we can all agree that the cornerstone of our
Strategic policy must continue to be the derrrrence of a

7 ^ / Tfte Essence of Security

deliberate nuclear attack against the United States or its
allies. From that cornerstone, we must answer the specific
question: What level of potential destruction would have
to be achieved to maintain that deterrence? A corollary to
the answer, without which it would be meaningless, is that
it would have to be understood fully by potential ad-
versaries.

Some people have argued that the Soviet or Red Chinese
tolerance of damage would be much higher than our own.
Even if this were true — which is debatable — it would
simply mean that we must maintain a greater assured-
destruction capability. In the case of the Soviet Union, I
would judge that a capability on our part to destroy, say,
one-fifth to one-fourth of her population and one-half of
her industrial capacity would serve as an effective deterrent.
Such a level of destruction would certainly represent in-
tolerable punishment to any twentieth-century industrial
nation.

Mainland China represents a somewhat different problem.
Today she is still far from being an industrial nation. What
industry she has is heavily concentrated in a comparatively
few cities. We estimate, for example, that a relatively small
number of warheads would destroy the majority of her
industrial capacity. Such an attack also would destroy most
of the key governmental structures and communications
facilities. Since China’s capacity to attack the United States
with nuclear weapons will be very limited at least through
the 1 97 os, the ability of even so small a portion of our
strategic forces to inflict such heavy damage upon them

The Choice of Weapons / 77

should serve as a major deterrent to a deliberate attack on
the United States.

Tlie next question which has to be answered is what
kind and how large a force do we need to ensure that we
can millet the necessary level of damage on the attackcT?
The requirement for assured-destruction forces can. be
determined logically only by the st?c and character of the
targer system, taking account of all the other relevant
factors. Among these are the number of our weapons
which at any given time are ready to be launched toward
their target; the number which could be expected to sur-
vive a Sonet surprise first attach, and the number of the
"ready,” surviving weapons which can reasonably be ex-
pected to reach the objective area, survive cnem) defenses
and strike their intended targets

Tims a logical determination of strategic-force require-
ments involves a rather complex set of calculations. Ob-
viously a change in any major element of the problem
necessitates changes in mam other dements. Tor example,
the Soviet deployment of a very extensive air-defense
system during the 1950s forced us to make some very im-
portant chinges in our strategic bomber forces. The B-51S
had to be prov ided with penetration aids, such as standoff
missiles, decoys and electronic countermeasure equipment.
In addition, the B-51 airframe had to lie substantially
strengthened to permit sustained low -altitude operations

Now, jn the late 19^0.% because the Soviet Union might
deploy extensive antimissile defenses, we are nuking some
very important chinges In onr strategic missile forces

7 8 / The Essence of Security

Instead of a single large warhead, our missiles are now
being designed to carry several small warheads and pene-
trations aids. It is the number of warheads, or objects
which appear to be warheads to the defender’s radars, that
will determine the outcome in a contest with an ABM
defense.

All of these considerations, illustrating both the strengths
and limitations of nuclear weapons, had an immediate corol-
lary in the obvious need for improvement in our non-
nuclear capability. Consequently we gave our conventional
forces early and high priority in 1961. Our preliminary
evaluation convinced us that we and our allies would have
to make a much greater effort toward a force structure
which could cope with limited aggression. The threat was
clear when measured against the relatively reduced state
of our conventional forces: we might have to face tests
ranging from small-scale guerrilla and subversive activities
to overt attacks by sizable military units. We concluded
that we would have to improve organization, manning,
equipment, training, mobility and, most especially, the
balance among all elements of the forces.

As a start we increased the purchase of conventional
weapons, ammunition and equipment, expanded the Navy’s
ship-maintenance program, ordered construction of more
amphibious transports, and modified Air Force tactical
fighters to improve their non-nuclear delivery capability.
In addition, we stepped up the pace of training; began re-
vamping the Army reserves; added personnel to the Arm y
and its Special Forces, as well as the Marine Corps and its

The Choice of Weapons / 7^

Reserve, increased airlift capability; and intensified non-
nuclear military research and dev elopment
These firsr sreps were os enaken by the Berlin crisis The
need to call up Reserves during that period confirmed our
belief thar much more fundamental changes would hast
to be made if our general-purpose forces were to meet our
long-range objectives But deciding how l*st to strengthen
our hmited-w ar capabilities is greatly complicated by sev -
cral factors They include the wide variety of war con-
tingencies for which we must be prepared, the sheer
numbers and kinds of units, weapons, equipment and sup-
plies involved, the important role Reserves pla> in these
forces, and, finally, the derivative relationship between
our own requirements and those of our allies
The over-all requirement for general-purpose forces k
related not so much to the defense of our own terncorv , of
course, as it is to the support of our commitments to other
nations Each of these commmncnrs gives rise to contingen-
cies for which we must plan This does not mean thar we
wilt ever be confronted by forty-odd South Victnams
simultaneously, however. These commitments do not re-
quire us to esccure an roman cal K any specific contingency
plan in response to a given situation, without regard to the
circumstances existing at the time And while we cannot
CTpect 10 meet all the contingencies simultaneously, neither
can our opponents Our policy' has been to set the st7C of
the general-purpose forces so that we can simultaneously
meet the more probable contingencies

The largest contingency outside NATO, in terms of po-

So / The Essence of Security

tenrial U.S. force requirements, is a Chinese attack on
Southeast Asia. Therefore we had to provide, in addition
to our NATO requirements, the forces required to meet
such an attack in Asia as well as to fulfill our commitments
in the Western Hemisphere. Because of the basic uncer-
tainty inherent in estimates of such requirements, we then
added to these force requirements provisions for a Strategic
Reserve.

I should emphasize that we have considerable flexibility
in meeting other possible contingencies which require
smaller forces, or those not requiring so rapid a build-up.
For example, in the Vietnam conflict we used the forces
earmarked for a major Asian contingency to meet the im-
mediate needs in the summer of 1965 and then activated
temporary forces to meet the longer-range needs. The very
stability of our own NATO contribution during that
period is a significant example of the flexibility wc de-
veloped.

More generally, NATO forces in the North Atlantic
area are about equal in manpower to those of the Warsaw
Pact in all regions except the Far North. NATO has about
900,000 troops deployed in all regions on Continental
Europe, compared to 960,000 troops for the Warsaw Pact.
While manpower comparisons alone are not conclusive
measures of military strength, I believe they are reasonable
first approximations of relative ground forces. Moreover,
our relative air capability is far greater than a simple com-
parison of numbers would indicate. By almost every measure

The Choice of Weapons / St

NATO (especially U.S ) air forces arc superior to those of
the Warsaw Pact for non-nuclear war.

Tf either side chose, the ready land forces could he greatly
reinforced before any fighting began, as in the 1961 Berlin
crisis. Assuming a simultaneous mobilization, within thirty
days the Pact would probably gain a manpower advantage
on the Central front and a somewhat greater advantage
in overall ground-combat capability. This gap would then
begin to narrow with the arrival of still more U.S forces
NATO tactical aircraft reinforcements would about
equal the Pact’s in the early stages of mobilization, after
which we could add considerably more Our mam ad-
vantage in this area, however, stems from the great superi-
ority of our aircraft, pilots and w capons In my judgment,
the forces planned arc adequate to meet our objectives,
especially if our allies make the improvements proposed in
the earlier consideration of NATO
The most likely kind of conflict tn NATO Europe ts one
arising from miscalculation dunng a period of tension,
rather thin a deliberately preplanned Soviet attack But we
cannot entirely discount such a deliberate attack If the
Soviets were to attack following a successful concealed
mobilization, they could have, temporarily, a substantial ad-
vantage in land forces Our own forces are large enough,
however, to require them to build up and attack with a
huge force. Such a mobilization would be, at Inst, difficult
to hide. In any event, the Sov iet Union and ber IZast Euro-
pean allies vv ould have to assume rh3t the West might react

82 / The Essence of Security

against such an attack with nuclear weapons. Considering
the destructive potential of both our theater and strategic
nuclear forces, and the fact that a deliberate attack would
constitute a clear threat to our vital interests, the Soviets
should be strongly deterred from attempting this strategy.

In keeping with these considerations our non-nuclear
forces grew rapidly in the years following 1961. The num-
ber of active combat-assigned Army divisions was increased
from eleven to sixteen as we added the men to fill them out
and sustain the training base that would keep them up to
strength. The total number of combat-assigned divisions—
Army and Marine, active and Reserve — in the permanent
force was increased by 66 percent.

The procurement of conventional weapons and support
systems was greatly expanded. For example, during 1962-65
direct obligations for Army procurement were about 60
percent greater than during the previous four years. In addi-
tion, the Army reorganized its divisions, dropping the nu-
clear-oriented pentomic configuration and introducing its
ROAD concept. What the reorganization did, essentially,
was fix the framework for a quick shift of forces to meet
a variety of combat situations. It also laid the organizational
groundwork for needed increases in firepower and mo-
bility.

The number of active and reserve mechanized Army in-
fantry and tank units was increased by no percent, and
their tanks and tactical vehicles were modernized. Much
improved mobility, especially for our forces oriented
toward underdeveloped areas, was obtained through greater

The Choice of Weapons / $$

emphasis on helicopters. In 1961 ihc Army and Marine
Corps had about 3,100 helicopters, all but 200 of which had
piston engines By the end of fiscal 1970, when 1968 orders
will be delivered, w e will ha\c aboor 7,500 modem turbine
helicopters, with much greater capacity and speed and
higher possible utilization rarcs than the ones they replaced

New air-mobility concepts were introduced into land-
force operations The creation of a provisional air-assault
division permitted tis to test air-mobility concepts m 1964-
<55, and allowed us to form the first Airmobile Division in
time to deploy it to Southeast Asia in the summer of 1965

The United States has about 7,1x30 taaical aircraft, and
its allies Ime another <S.ooo. 3bout the same number as
were available in 1961, and about the same as the current
world-wide Communist total At the same time, our tacti-
cal air capability Ins increased dramatically . rclativ e both to
1961 and to the threat. Under our presently planned pro-
gram this trend will continue through the early 1970s This
increase in mer-a!I capability results from modernization
of forces together with major improvements in conven-
tional ordnance For instance, we have doubled the payload
of our tactical aircraft since 1961, and we will double it
again by 1972.

Of all the thousands of changes nude in our military
forces over the sev en-y car penod, the single area of strategic
mm ement comes closest to illustrating how we tried to meet
the new demands on non-nuclear capability. The central
question here, of course, is the ability to move quickly to
meet passible threats, conceivably at widely sepatated points

8 if / The Essence of Security

in the world. There are essentially two main approaches.
The first is to maintain very large conventional forces
stationed around the globe near all potential trouble spots.
The second is to maintain a smaller central reserve of
highly ready forces, supported by the means to move them
promptly wherever they might be needed. These two ap-
proaches have never been truly distinct alternatives, but
both the relative feasibility and desirability of the second
have greatly increased during the last decade.

The most obvious and pressing requirement in early
i9<St was for greatly improved strategic airlift. Our early
actions included a step-up in the C-130 program, the pro-
curement of C-135S and the initiation of the C-141 develop-
ment.

Since then each succeeding crisis — Berlin, Cuba and Viet-
nam — has underscored the importance of adequate airlift,
and we have continued to expand this program. In the
future, even our largest transport, the C-5A, will be able
to deliver its cargo to primitive airfields well forward in
the theater of operations. And where formerly only rela-
tively light land-force equipment could be airlifted, the
C-5AS and C-141S will be capable of carrying virtually all
types of equipment organic to Army divisions.

Besides the build-up of the airlift fleet itself, the most
important measure taken to improve our rapid-response
capability was the forward pre-positioning of the heavy
equipment and bulk supplies which could be taken over
quickly by combat units airlifted into the area. Land-based
pre-positioning has been provided in Europe and the Far

The Choice of Weaponf / Sj

East- However, there arc practical limits to how far this
should be carried Therefore we decided to turn to a more
flexible method of pre-positioning, using converted Victory
ships as mobile depots earning balanced loads of heavy
equipment and supplies

Tins approach led eventually to the development of an
entirely new concept tn sealift, a special ship — fast, highly
efficient, tailored for its role — to complement strategic air-
lift These vessels would be built for the strategic function
only, to be positioned near trouble spots with a full load
of combat and support equipment, or poised ready m a
US port. Their name fits their role. Fast Deployment
Logistic Ship, or FDL

After testing a wide range of combinations, we found
the force that gives us the required capability at least cost
stx O5A squadrons, fourteen C-t4t squadrons and thirty
FDLs, pre-posuioncd equipment in Europe and in the
Pacific, a Cud Reserve Air Fleer, and 460 commercial
cargo ships Still, other combinations arc possible, of course,
and the solurion ultimately w ill be w orked out betw een my
successors and the Congress

The list of new developments is almost endless, in a
decade which «w technology accelerating constantly' For
the layman w ithour technical training, it is a bew ildcnng
array. There is always the danger that we are simply hand-
ing hint incomprehensible terms when we tell him that the
number of guided -missile surface ships has been increased
from 3} to 73, or that helicopter lift capability’ has increased
by joo percent. Unfortunate!)’, and for obvious reasons, we

86 / The Essence of Security

cannot be more explicit on nuclear capability, to cite one
example, than to say that we have increased the number
of nuclear weapons in NATO Europe by 100 percent.

Yet I would suggest that the government ought to try
harder to communicate in tins area. It may be too much to
expect the layman to react knowledgeably to news that the
Poseidon has five to ten times the destructive power of the
Polaris missile. He may not grasp completely the explana-
tion that a new roclcet can carry several nuclear warheads,
each proceeding independently to its target as it re-enters the
atmosphere. But he ought to understand subjectively that
decisions on the deployment of these weapons might be a
critical piece in a broader mosaic which will determine the
survival of man.

We in government have the obligation to explain our
decisions to the extent security will permit; after all, it is
we who should stand humbly with the power and responsi-
bility placed in our hands, for we know the consequences
if we fail.

CHAPTER SIX

Managing for Defense

lur challenge of the Department of Defense is com-
pelling It is the greatest single management complex tn
history, it supers ises the greatest aggregation of raw power
cser assembled by man. Yet my instructions from both
President Kennedy and President Johnson were simple- to
determine and prmide what we needed to safeguard our
security without arbitrary’ budget limits, but to do so as
economically as possible

In many respects the role of a public manager is similar
to that of a pri\ ate manager. In each ease he rruy follow
one of two alternant e courses. He can act either as a judge

*7

88 / The Essence of Security

or as a leader. As the former he waits until subordinates
bring him problems for solution, or alternatives for choice.
In the latter case, he immerses himself in his operation, leads
and stimulates an examination of the objectives, the prob-
lems and the alternatives. In my own case, and specifically
with regard to the Department of Defense, the responsible
choice seemed clear.

From the beginning in January, 1961, it seemed to me that
the principal problem in efficient management of the De-
partment’s resources was not the lack of management au-
thority. The National Security Act provides the Secretary of
Defense a full measure of power. The problem was rather
the absence of the essential management tools needed to
make sound decisions on the really crucial issues of na-
tional security.

Two points seem to me axiomatic. The first is that the
United States is well able to spend whatever it needs to
spend on national security. The second point is that this
ability does not excuse us from applying strict standards
of effectiveness and efficiency to the way we spend our
Defense dollars.

Within that framework, our early studies led us into
three major efforts: improvement of our strategic retalia-
tory forces, increased emphasis on our non-nuclear forces,
and a general upgrading of effectiveness and efficiency in
the Defense Establishment. For that matter, the first two of
our major objectives commanded wide support by the time
I took office, as I mentioned earlier.

The third caused considerable controversy. Not that

.tfcftjgiflg \or Defense / fy

there was much disagreement about the need, for years
everyone w ho thought seriously about the Department of
Defense felt that major Improvements Mere needed. The
solutions offered ranged from drastic proposals for com-
plete unification of the armed forces to vague suggestions
about "cutting the fat out of the military budget." But there
was no consensus on just m hat should be done.

Moreover, there was an additional and inevitable human
problem These reforms would necessarily change tradi-
tional ways of doing things, and limit the customary* Mays
of spending Defense money. It is incurable that people will
take more easily to suggestions that they should have more
money to spend, as in the improvement of our nuclear and
non-nuclear capabilities, than to suggestions that they must
spend less or that the> must abandon established m ays of
doing things Yet the \ cry sulistantul increases tn the budget
which wc felt necessary added a further strong incentive,
if any were needed, to move ahead on these problems of
Increasing efficiency and effectiveness

What vv c set out to do can be divided into rvv o parts the
first essentially a senes of management reforms of the kind
to be found in any vv ell-run organization, an effort w hich is
in large part covered by the formal Five-Year Cost Reduc-
tion Program M'c set up in July, 196a The common char-
actenstic of such reforms b that thev have very little to do
with military effectiveness, one way or the other. They
merely save money' by' intro<fucing more efficient methods
of doing things.

The second and more important part of the effort did

$0 / The Essence of Security

bear directly on military effectiveness. Although dollar sav-
ings arc sometimes an important by-product, here the essen-
tial point was to increase military effectiveness. We found
that the three military departments had been establishing
their requirements independently of each other. The results
could be described fairly as chaotic: Army planning, for
example, was based primarily on a long war of attrition;
Air Force planning was based, largely, on a short war of
nuclear bombardment. Consequently the Army was stat-
ing a requirement for stocking months, if not years, of
combat supplies against the event of a sizable conventional
conflict. The Air Force stock requirements for such a war
had to be measured in days, and not very many days at that.
Either approach, consistently followed, might make some
sense. The two combined could not possibly make sense.
What we needed was a coordinated strategy seeking ob-
jectives actually attainable with the military resources avail-
able. The fact was that, in the past, so-called requirements
bore almost no relation to the real world: enormous re-
quirements existed on paper, often almost entirely disem-
bodied from the actual size and nature of the procurement
program.

Our new form of budget for the first time grouped to-
gether for planning purposes units which must fight to-
gether in the event of war. The Navy strategic forces, rhe
Polaris submarines, arc now considered together with the
Air Force Strategic Air Command; Navy general-purpose
forces are considered together with the Army and Marine
divisions and the Air Force Tactical Air Command. Tliis
kind of reform provides substantial improvement in the

Manigfax for Defense / ft

effectiveness of our military establishment. I. sen where it
docs not lead directly to lower expenditures, it w economi-
cal in the true sense of the start), that it, it gnes us the
maximum mtionil security obtainable from the dollars we
do spend We can imagine many different lands of wars the
United States must be prepared to fighr, but a war m which
the Army fights independently of the Nivj, or the Navy
independently of the Air Force, is not one of them Quite
obviously, the coordination of the planning of the four
services makes eminently good sense on the narrowest null-
rary grounds.

The situation tiecomes inure complicated when decisions
must be made on requested force-level increases or the
development or procurement of new weapons \ddmg a
weapon to our inventors is not necessarily synonymous
until adding to our national security Moreover, even if we
w ere to draft cv cry scientist and engineer in the country
into vvcapons-dcvclopmcnt work, we could still develop
only a fraction of the systems that are proposed This proc-
ess of choice must begin with solid indications that a pro-
posed system would really add something to our national
security. The United States cannot even seriously consider
going ahead with a full-scale weapons -system development
until that basic requirement has been met

Development costs alone on typical major weapons sys-
tems today are enormous Over a billion dollars were spent
on the atomic airpl ine, vv Inch was little closer to l»c«ng a use-
ful weapon when we canceled ir, shortly' after I rook office,
than it had been half a dozen y can earlier

The B-70 bomber also was an example of a weapon

92 / The Essence of Security

which, it seemed to me, failed to meet the basic require-
ment for a major systems development. It happened to be a
particularly expensive weapon, since to develop, procure
and operate a modest force of these planes would have cost
us at least $10 billion. Yet considering the weapons we al-
ready would have by the time the B-70 could be operational,
it was very hard to see how this weapon would add to our
national security.

In fact, the whole debate on the B-70 tended toward
terms which had very little to do with the facts of the
situation. There was a lot of talk about missiles versus
bombers. I have no feeling about missiles versus bombers as
such. If bombers serve our national interest, then we should
be interested in bombers; if missiles, then wc should be in-
terested in missiles; if a mix, then we should be interested in
the mix. But the B-70 would have carried no bombs. It would
have attacked its target with a very complex air-launched
missile system from distances of hundreds of miles. The
question was not bombs versus missiles. We were all agreed
that it must be missiles. The debate was about alternative
launching platforms and alternative missile systems. And the
particular launching platform and missile system proposed
in the B-70 program just was not an effective means to ac-
complish the missions proposed for it. Despite the enormous
controversy and criticism when development was canceled,
I think there now is general agreement that the decision
was sound.

Obviously one reason for restraint in choosing new

Manjgtng for Defense j pj

weapons systems is their growing complexity. We need to
Veep the number of new systems as low as possible con-
sistent with security, in the interest of maximum reliability.
The efficiency demonstrated by a w capon oa a test range
may drop sharpl) under the chaotic conditions of combat.
We must as oid putting ourscUes in the position of the
camera bug who weighs himself down with so much spe-
cialized equipment that he actually gets poorer results than
a more lightly equipped competitor. And let me add that
not only do the proliferation and complication of weapons
reduce dependability, but they are major factor* contrib-
uting to enormous excess m\ cnroncs of pans and equipment
What becomes clear, then, is that the question of bow to
spend Defense dollars and how much to spend is more
complicated than is often assumed A new weapon cannot
lie viewed in isolation An> one who has been exposed to
so-called broclmrcmaitship knows that c> en the most out-
landish notions can be dressed up to look superficial!) at-
tractnc Instead, each new weapon must be considered
against a wide range of issues us place in the complex of
missions to he performed, ns effects on the stability of the
military situition in the world, other alterrumcs available
These decisions must be made ultimately with a high
degree of judgment, but there is an important difference
between the way we went about them and the way they
used to be made. Formerly an arbitrary budget ceiling
was fixed for national defense and funds were then ap-
portioned among the semets Today we examine all our

P4 / The Essence of Security

military needs, in the context of our national security in
the broadest sense, and fill them accordingly.

Up to this point I have emphasized the general considera-
tions we applied in the Defense Department after January,
1961; the goals we sought and how we set about making the
decisions to reach them. As I mentioned earlier, there was
no lack of management authority, but we felt sharply the
need for more efficient machinery with which to exercise it.

The problem may be considered this way: in order to
.make crucial decisions on force levels and weapons, the
President, the Secretary of Defense and Congress must have
complete information focused on those questions and their
place in the over-all military system. They need to know,
for example, the military effectiveness and die cost of a
B-52 squadron as it relates to a Minuteman missile squadron
and a Polaris submarine. The data must include not only the
cost of equipping these units but also the cost of manning
and operating them for various periods. Only under these
circumstances can the alternatives be made fully clear.

One of the first things we did in 1961 was to design a
new mechanism which would provide this information and
integrate it into a single, coherent management system.
The product of this effort was the Planning-Programing-
Budgeting System, which is now being widely applied
throughout the U.S. Government and which is being in-
troduced in foreign governments as well.

For the Defense Department, this system serves several
very important purposes:

Manjgmg for Defense / pf

i, It provides the mechanism through which financial
budgets, weapons programs, force requirements, mili-
tary strategy and foreign policy objectives are all
brought into balance with one another,
a. It produces the annual Five-Year Defense Program,
w hich is perhaps the most important single management
tool for the Secretary of Defense and the basis for the
annual proposal to Congress.

3. It permits the top management of the Defense Depart-
ment, the President and the Congress to focus their at-
tention on the tasks and missions related to our national
objectives, rather than on the tasks and missions of a
particular sen ice

4. It provides for the entire Defense Establishment a single
approved plan, projected far enough into the future to
ensure that all the programs arc both physically and
financially feasible

In short, the new planning system allowed us to achieve a
true unification of effort within the Department without
having ro undergo a drastic upheaval of the entire organiza-
tional structure. It would be a shell without substance,
however, were it not backed by the full range of analytic
support which operations research and other modem man-
agement techniques can bring to bear on national secuntj
problems. To this end we dev eloped highly capable systems-
aoilysis staffs w ithin the Office of the Secretary of Defense,
the Joint Chiefs of Staff organizations and the military dc-

96 / The Essence of Security

partnients. These staffs provided the civilian and military
decision-makers of the Department with an order of analy-
tical support far higher than had ever been the case in the
past. I am convinced that this approach not only leads to
far sounder and more objective decisions over the long run
but yields as well the maximum amount of effective defense
we can buy with each Defense dollar expended.

The creation of the Defense Department stemmed di-
rectly from one of the great lessons learned in World War
II: that separate land, sea and air operations were gone for-
ever, and that in future wars the combat forces would have
to be employed as teams under unified strategic direction.
The National Security Act of 1947 and its subsequent
amendments established the Department and shaped its
basic mode of operation. Three separate military depart-
ments reporting to the Secretary of Defense were retained
to train, supply, administer and support the respective land,
sea and air forces. However, operational direction of the
combat forces in the field was made the responsibility of
the unified and specified commanders, reporting to the
Secretary through the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Thus, from a
functional viewpoint, the Department of Defense has been
given a bilineal organizational structure. The operational
control and direction of the combat forces extend down
through one chain of command, and the direction and con-
trol of the supporting activities down through another.
While this basic structure proved to be entirely sound and
workable, we have found it necessary over the past seven
years to make a number of changes in both parts of the or-
ganization.

Managing for Defense / 97

With respect to the first chain nf command, it seemed to
me that two major deficiencies still remained to be cor-
rected-. Some of the combat-ready forces had not yet been
placed under the unified and specified command structure.
Abo, the Joint Chiefs of Staff had not yet been pros ided the
organizational and management tools the)- needed tn order
to give the most effective day-to-day operational direction
to the combat forces.

To correct the first deficiency, we created in 1961 the
U.S Strike Command, putting under a single joint com-
mand the combat-ready forces of the Tactical Air Com-
mand and the Strategic Army Corps They previously had
been controlled directly by their respective military de-
partments. With that organizational change, all combat-
ready forces arc now assigned within the unified and speci-
fied command structure The Strike Command provided
us vnth an integrated, mobile, highly combat-ready force,
available to augment the unified commands o\ crscas or to lie
employed as the primary force m remote areas Moreover,
as a result of the improv cd operational concepts dev eloped
under Strike Command and the joint training received, the
entire Army -Air Force team is now better integrated and
works together more efficiently and effectively than at any
other time in our history

To meet the need for better managerial tools, we care-
fully reviewed both the internal organization of the Jotm
Chiefs of Staff and the various support functions We found
that two of the most important sen ices to field com-
manders — communications and intelligence — were being
performed separately by the three military departments with

p8 / The Essence of Security

virtually no regard for the role of the JCS in the opera-
tional direction of combat forces in the field. It was clear
that both of these functions should be brought under the
direct supervision of the JCS. But they were too large and
diverse to be placed within the Organization of the joint
Chiefs of Staff and too important to be fragmented among
the individual unified and specified commands. Accord-
ingly, wc decided to consolidate them in two new Defense
agencies which report to the Secretary of Defense directly
through the Joint Chiefs.

Actions were already under way in 1961 to form the
Defense Communications Agency. We expanded its func-
tions to include not only the long-haul communications
facilities of the Defense Establishment, but also those re-
quired for command and control functions, intelligence,
weather services, logistics and administration for all com-
ponents of the Department. The intelligence functions
formerly performed by the three services moved under
the new Defense Intelligence Agency.

Several measures were talcen to improve the organiza-
tion surrounding the Joint Chiefs of Staff. A new National
Military Command System was created to ensure that the
JCS can continue to direct the armed forces under all fore-
seeable circumstances. Several new offices were added, in-
cluding special assistants in such diverse areas as strategic
mobility and counterinsurgency.

When we looked into the support functions, we found
that organization had lagged far behind technological ad-
vance. The logistics structures of the military departments

Afjnjtfng for Defeme J $9

simply hid not kept pace with the demands of rapidly
changing technology. The inefficiencies drew repeated at-
tention and criticism from the Congress, which continually
prodded the Department in the direction of a fully unified
logistics management. The Defense Establishment, how-
ever, had moved ver)' haltingly toward that objective with
various improv nations. Our solution «as to create in 19^1
the Defense Supply Agency. We consolidated into it the
eight existing separarc managers for common supplies, the
manager for traffic management, the Armed Forces Supply
Support Center and the surplus property sales offices Later
xv c assigned additional responsibilities to DS A. including the
management of common electrical and electronics items,
chemical supplies and industrial production equipment. All
this resulted in substantial reductions in inventories and op-
erating costs, plus wide improvements in supply services.

Before xv c organized the Defense Supply Agency, the
various elements of the Department — to ate a cypical exam-
ple — were using slightly different forms for requisitions,
no less than sixteen in all As a result, nearly every time a
piece of property xv as transferred from one parr of the De-
partment to another, a new requisition form had to be
typed. By the simple expedient of establishing a common
requisition form and system, xvc eliminated literally tens of
thousands of man-hours of labor formerly wasted in having
clerks retype the forms Other minor but colorful instances
of itnprox enicnt were the consolidation of eighteen differ-
ent types and sizes of butcher smocks, four kinds of belt
buckles and six kinds of women’s exercise bloomers.

too / The Essence of Security

In addition to these changes in the support field, many
more were found necessary in the three military depart-
ments, particularly in the broad area of logistics manage-
ment. In the Army rhe logistics functions of the old “tech-
nical services” were merged into a new Army Materiel
Command. In the Navy the logistics functions performed
by its bureaus were replaced by a Naval Materiel Command.
In the Air Force a realignment between the Research and
Development Command and the Air Materiel Command
resulted in two new commands: the Air Force Systems
Command and the Air Force Logistics Command. We made
each of these organizational changes to meet the need for
increased efficiency in the procurement and support of
new weapons systems, as well as to keep pace with rapidly
changing technology.

All these organizational changes were important in the
improvement of Defense Department management. But
in the end, economy and efficiency in the day-to-day execu-
tion of the Defense program rests largely in the hands of
tens of thousands of military and civilian managers in the
field. How to motivate them to do their job more efficiently,
and how to determine whether or not they do so, have al-
ways been among the most difficult and elusive problems
facing the top management of the Defense Department.
Even where poor performance is found, the practical reme-
dies arc more limited than one would imagine. The com-
petition for competent management personnel is extremely
keen. We had no absolute assurance that the people we

Managing for Defense J sol

cotild hire would be any better than those «c might fire.
My task was to dev isc a management system through which
I could mobilize the capabilities of the managers at the
lower levels, involve them more intimately in the entire
management process, and motivate them to seek out and
develop more efficient ways of doing their jofw Anti that in
essence is the purpose of the Defense Department’s Gut
Reduction Program.

Since almost three-quarters of the total Defense budget
is spent for logistics in the broadest sense of that term, we
concentrated our efforts first on that ennre process From
various studies, we were able to identify the be) areas tn
which improvements were urgently needed and where the
potential for significant savings was the greatest

The problem was how to organize the effort on a broad
continuing basis We knew that “one-shut" efforts soon
plavcd our, leaving behind no real long-term benefits
Finally, vc realized that unless the top management itself
placed a high priority on the effort, managers at low cr levels
would soon lose mrercsr in the program

Initially we laid out a five-year program. Some twemv-
cighc distinct areas of logistics management were carefully
delineated and grouped under the three major over-all ob-
jectives of the program to buy only what we needed, to
buy ar the lowest sound price, and to reduce operanng
costs We freed specific annua! cost-reduction goals, and
designed a quarterly reporting system to measure progress
against these goals Fa eh service Secretary and agency head

102 / The Essence of Security

was directed to review personally the progress achieved
and to report the results to my office. I then carefully re-
viewed these results myself, and reported on them to the
President and the Congress each year.

We consistently tried to apply one basic test: that a re-
portable savings must result from a clearly identifiable, new
or improved management action which actually reduced
costs while fully satisfying the military requirement. I be-
lieve that by and large the savings we reported over the
years have met that basic test.

Beyond those savings — more than $14 billion during the
five-year period — the program has raised significantly the
effectiveness of our world-wide logistics system. We have
developed new procurement techniques to broaden compe-
tition for Defense work and reduce the use of cost-plus-
fixed-fee contracts. More realistic standards determine
requirements. New procedures ensure maximum use of ex-
cess inventories throughout the Department. Special staffs
were organized to eliminate unneeded frills from specifi-
cations.

With the completion of the five-year program in fiscal
1966, I established the program on an annual basis the
following year. We set a goal of $i.j billion in savings to be
realized in three years from decisions to be made in fiscal
year 1967. The results have already exceeded our ob-
jectives. The current estimate for the three-year period
stands now at $2,059 billion.

The management task is never finished, of course, and
this is particularly true of cost reduction. Even while old

Managing for Defense / toy

deficiencies arc being corrected, entirely new ones appear.
The very large savings achieved during tire first five jean
art not likely to be duplicated during the succeeding fine
years, but there arc a number of logistics areas w here the
opportunities for irnprm cnicnt are virtually unlimited. One
in which activity will no doubt continue is the program
through which we closed installations \vc no longer needed
In many cases they simply were surplus, in others con-
solidation was dictated by sound management Altogether,
we took 967 actions in the seven sears, releasing 1,818.000
acres (over 3,000 square miles) of real estate and eliminat-
ing 107,047 jobs

We recognized, of course, that this program could have
senous impact on local communities and on our own cm-
plojccs From the bcgmntng the Department wotked
close!) with the communities affected, seeking to find
other uses for the facilities we no longer needed We
guaranteed every displaced emploj cc an offer of a new job,
and guaranteed as w ell his former salary lev el for tw o \ ears
when he took a low cr-paving job

These, then, arc the sorts of problems, targe and rela-
tively small, which fall to the Secretary of Defense. Sharp
differences arise as to how much we should spend on de-
fense and where we should spend our marginal Defense
dollars And here is where the responsibility’ most clearl)
falls upon the Secretary. At the end, these problems come
down always to the same question what is really in our
national interest 5 livery hour of ever)’ day the Secretary is
confronted by a conflict between the national interest and

W4 / The Essence of Security

the parochial interests of particular industries, individual
services or local areas. He cannot avoid controversy in the
whole range of issues which dominate the headlines if he is
to place the interest of the many above the interest of the
few. And yet it is the national interest, above all, which he
has sworn to serve.

PART III

Where Security Lies

CHAPTER SEVEN

On Gaps and Bridges

Man is the only cream c antnia! on earth, though para-
doxically his resistance to change sometimes can Ik almost
heroically obstinate. He builds institutions in order to pre-
sene past innovations, hut in that very act often fails ro
promote the cm ironment for the grow xh of new ones. And
so there have developed the So-called gaps that trouble our
times There are several, but two of which we have heard
recently, and w hich I w ant to th<cuss in this cliapter, arc
the gap betw etn the industrial nations of Western Europe

108 / The Essence of Security

and ourselves — the technological gap — and the gap that
divides the young, protesting members of out society from
their elders — the generation gap.

The Europeans speak of a technological gap, complaining
that we are so surpassing them in industrial development
that wc eventually will create a kind of technological
colonialism. Prime Minister Harold Wilson of Great Britain
not long ago used some rather pointed language at a meet-
ing of the Council of Europe at Strasbourg. He warned of
“an industrial helotry under which we in Europe produce
only the conventional apparatus of a modern economy,
while becoming increasingly dependent on American busi-
ness for the sophisticated apparatus which will call the
industrial tune in the seventies and eighties.”

The whole question got onto the agenda of NATO’s
ministerial meeting in Paris in 1966. The Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development published a report
on the subject, and the Common Market has been deeply
concerned.

Part of the problem is the so-called brain drain. Increas-
ing numbers of foreign-bom scientisrs and technicians are
leaving the Old World for the New, not merely because of
high salaries but because of the challenging and adventurous
jobs available in the United States.

Without discounting the more serious implications of
this matter, we ought not to become too narrowly nation-
alistic about it either. Brains, on the whole, are like hearts, -
and they go where they are appreciated. Nationalism, gen-
erally spealdng, has never made much headway against
love. One may doubt that nationalism by itself is going to

On Gapf and flrtdgcs / /oy

l>e much more successful with the beam than it has been
with the heart

However, t do fme a suggestion for .Europe about the
so-called brain drain In my view, the technological gap
veas misnamed. Ic is not so much a technological gap as tt
ts a managcnal gap, and the brain dram occurs not merely
because we have more advanced technology here m the
United States, hut rather because we have more modem
and effective management.

God — the Communist commentators to the contrary — is
clearly democratic. I !e distributes brain pow'er umv ersally,
but fie quite justifiably expects us to do something efficient
and constructive with that priceless gift That is what man-
agement is all about Its medium is human capacity . and its
most fundamental task is to deal with change It is the gate
through which social, political, economic, technological
change, indeed change m ever}' dtmension, is rationallv
spread through society

Some critics today worr} that our democratic, free soci-
eties are becoming overmanaged I would argue that the
opjiosttc is true As paradoxical as it mav sound, the real
threat to democracy comes not from oicrmanagcment, but
from undernianagemenr To undermanage reality is not to
keep it free. It is simply’ to let some force other than reason
shape reality. That force may be unbridled emotion, it may*
be greed, ft may be aggrcssiv eness, it may be hatred, tt may
be ignorance; it may be inertia; it may be anything other
than reason. But whatever ir is, if it is not reason that rules
mam then man falls short of his potential.

Viral decision-mating, particularly in policy matters.

no / The Essence of Security

must remain at the top. This is partly, though not com-
pletely, what the top is for. But rational decision-making
depends on having a full range of rational options from
which to choose, and successful management organizes the
enterprise so that process can best take place. It is a mech-
anism whereby free men can most efficiently exercise their
reason, initiative, creativity and personal responsibility. The
adventurous and immensely satisfying task of an efficient
organization is to formulate and analyze these options.

It is true enough that not every conceivable complex
human situation can be fully reduced to lines on a graph, or
to percentage points on a chart, or to figures on a halance
sheet. But all reality can be reasoned about, and not to
quantify what can be quantified is only to be content with
something less than the full range of reason.

Modern creative management of huge, complex phenom-
ena is impossible without both the technical equipment and
technical skills which the advance of human knowledge
has brought us. In my view, the industrial gap that is be-
ginning to widen between Europe and the United States is
due in large part to what we have been discussing here.

Now, how can that gap be closed? Can it be closed by
boycotting American technology with high tariffs, or by
prohibiting American investment in foreign countries? Can
it be overcome by narrowly restricting scientific immigra-
tion? I doubt it. Can it be closed by individual countries in
Europe establishing an immensely expensive and narrowly
nationalistic defense industry, on the dubious economic
theory that only through massive military research and

On Gaps and Bridges / in

development can a nation industrialize with maximum speed
and benefit to its domestic economy 5 The arms er is demon-
Strably no. and the proof is clear The tw'o ns erseas nations
which have industrialized the most rapidly and successfully
since the end of World War II arc West Germany and
Japan Neither of these nations has established a domestic
defense industry How, then, can the technological gap be
dosed 3 Ultimately it can be closed only at its origin
education.

Europe is weak educationally, and that weakness ts
seriously crippling its growth It ts weak in its general edu-
cation, it is weak in its technical education, and ir is par-
ticularly weak in its managerial education The rctevant
statistics are revealing In the United Kingdom, France.
Germany and Italy, for example, abour 90 percent of the
thirteen- and fourteen-) cir-old students arc enrolled m
school But after age fifteen there is an abrupt and sharp
drop Fewer than 20 percent remain m school In the United
States 9 9 percent of the thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds
are in school, but more important, even at age eighteen u c
still ha\ c more than 45 percent pursuing their education

In the United Kingdom some $36,000 students arc en-
rolled at the Unix ersity lex el. Thus only about 10 percent of
college-age individuals arc attending institutions of higher
learning In Germany there arc about 270,000 students at
the unit ersity level, and this represents only about 7 per-
cent of all the college-age youth In Italy there are about
240,000 students at the university level, which, again, is
oniy about 7 percent of the cobege-agc group

H2 / The Essence of Security

In France the picture is somewhat brighter. Some 400,000
students, about 15 percent of the college-age group, are
receiving higher education. But compare these figures of
industrialized Europe with the United States. Here we
have more than four million students in college, and this
represents some 40 percent of our college - age population.
What is also to the point is that modern managerial educa-
tion — the level of competence, say, of the Harvard Business
School — is practically unknown in industrialized Europe. 1
cite these statistics, not to boast of American education,
which, all too clearly, has its own deficiencies, but to point
out that technological advance, and its two bedrock pre-
requisites, broad general knowledge and modern managerial
competence, cannot come into being without improving
the foundation of it all.

That foundation is education, right across the board. If
Europe really wants to close the technological gap, it has
to improve its education, both general and special, and both
quantitatively and qualitatively. There is no other way to
get to the taproot of the problem. I do not want to be mis-
understood in all this; science and technology, and modern
management, do not sum up the entire worth of education.
Developing our human capabilities to the fullest is what
ultimately matters most. Call it humanism, or call it what-
ever one likes, but that clearly is what education finally is
all about. Yet without modern science and technology, and
the generalist and managerial structure to go with it, prog-
ress of any land, spiritual, humanistic, economic or other-
wise, will become increasingly less possible everywhere in

On Gapr and Rrtiges / 1 jy

the world. Without thif kmc! of progress the world is
going to remain explosively backward and provincial

The second gap, between our protesting young and their
somewhat bewildered elders, is related The times in which
we In c have been called the Age nf Protest, and judging
from the number of pickers on our nation’s sidew alks, it
docs not seem an altogether unappropriate otic If one
reads the many millions of words written on the subjeer, it
is not entirety clear who is doing the more protesting the
young people against their elders or the elders agamsr their
children. There arc grounds for believing that the 1960$
arc not the first time the older generation has protested
against the young. But what about the protests of the
younger gcncran on. and especially the college generation’

For those w orned parents who believe that campus prob-
lems began with Berkeley in 1964. it may be instructive to
read of the riors at the University of Pam in 1218 and at
Oxford in 1 355 It is true that they were not so much
sit-ins as they were drink -ins since the trouble usually
began in a tavern, but they did involve the relationship of
civil authority and the university’s autonomy, and they
make ev ents at Berkeley not long ago look tame by com-
parison

As a matter of fact, a survey of more than sev en hundred
college presidents on the subject of student protests re-
vealed that, contrary' to popular belief, most student dem-
onstrations today do not involve the war in Vietnam, or
civil rights, or political issues at all Most of the protests,
it seems, are about allowing students more say in umv ersny

ii4 / Tfe Essence of Security

administration, educational policy or various housing regu-
lations.

Even so, there is a serious, even grave, dimension to the
protest among many students today. But whatever com-
fort some of the extremist protest may be giving our en-
emies, and it is clear that this is the case, let us be dear about
our principles and our priorities. This is a nation in which
the freedom of dissent is fundamental, and beneath its
specific protests there runs a generalized theme in most of
the serious student discussion. It is the fear that somehow
society, all society — East and West — has fallen victim to a
bureaucratic tyranny of technology that is gradually de-
personalizing and alienating modern man himself.

In its roots this may be a nameless fear, but it is clearly
not altogether a new one. Man has always trembled a bit
before his tools, and there always has been an intrinsic am-
bivalence in technology. The cave man, for example, dis-
covered that a stone ax was a decided improvement over a
pointed stick in dispatching the wild animals in the neigh-
borhood. Then he discovered to his dismay that it also was
a fairly fearful instrument in the hands of a disgruntled
neighbor who in a sudden burst of unncighborliness might
wish to dispatch him as well. The enterprising visionary
who first invented the wheel found to his delight, no doubt,
that he could ride a lot more comfortably than he could
run; but if he was anything like our contemporaries, he
probably also discovered that the wheel could not only run
faster than the pedestrian, it could also run over him.

Today our tools are more complex, but they are no less

On Gaps and Bridges { tsj

ambit akm in their moral applicability. We can use thermo-
nuclear power to dig a new Panama Canal or we can use «
to dig a new’ maw grave for humanity. At Berkeley students
carried signs reading **I am a human being, do not fold,
bent! or mutilate,” It is a sentiment we can all emphatically
agree with, I wish scry much tint college students in
Peking and Hanoi were allowed to carry the same signs on
their campuses.

But for many students m America the computer has
become the primordial symbol of mass impcrsonalizanon
It is ironical that this should be so considering the immense
quantum of human drudgery, both mental and manual, that
the computer has eliminated It has l>ccn the American
practice from the beginning to take work loads ofT the
backs of men and put them onto the backs of machines \\ c
have done that not so much ticca use we base valued ma-
chines m themselves but because we hav c v allied man more

The argument against modem took like the computer is.
ultimately, an argument against reason itself Not that a
computer is a substitute for reason, quite the contrary, u
is a product of reason and it assists us in the application of
reason. But to argue that some phenomena transcend pre-
cise measurement — which is true enough — is no excuse for
neglecting the arduous task of carefully analyzing wliat
car; be measured A computer docs not sulistirutc for judg-
ment any more than a penal substitutes for Iitcracv. But
writing ability without a penal is no particular advantage

In any event, it scans a little premature to worry about a
computer being on the \ erge of replacing the human brain

n 6 / The Essence of Security

Quite apart from anything else, that brain is an utterly
incredible computer itself, probably the most magnificent
bit of miniaturization in the universe. Though it weighs
only about three pounds, it contains some ten billion nerve
cells, each of which has some 25,000 possible interconnec-
tions witli other nerve cells. It has been calculated that to
build an electronic computer large enough to have that
range of choice would require an area equal to the entire
surface of the earth. As St. Augustine observed, man looks'
about the universe in awe at its wonders and forgets that he
himself is the greatest wonder of all.

But it is also true that the ambivalence of technology
grows with its own complexity, and Homo faber, Man the
Maker, is wise continually to question whether it is he or
his tools who are in charge. As yet there is no definitive
answer to the question, but there is a definitive need to
keep asking it. Clearly the real question is not whether we
should have tools but only whether we are becoming took
It is not really the computer that is in question; it is whether
or not Dr. Strangelove is sitting at the console.

It is too simple an answer to reply that technology itself
is morally neutral and that man must simply take care to
retain his human control. The more profound question is
whether or not complex technology narrows or widens the
alternatives available for human control. It is clear enough
that man conditions his technology; what is less clear is
the extent to which technology conditions man. The degree,
and moral quality of that conditioning is a dilemma we must
face, but we must face it and solve it and not merely fall
into an escapist and emotional romanticism.

On Gaps and Bridges / 1/7

One of the most refreshing qualities of the campus
ferment is its intense inner-dirccicilncss and its frankly
philosophical bent. One student observed. “We don’t auto-
matically accept the value of institutions” Another added
flatly. “Our quarrel is with Aristotle, wc say man is not a
social animal.”

As much as one might be tempted to disagree with those
sentiments, it is man clous to hear university' students seri-
ously quarreling with Anstotlc again. It may even sym-
bolize the renaissance of metaphysics from the swampland
of semamicism where it has been bogged down for so long

It is understandable that the tendency of contemporary
man standing in awe of his own technology should be to
look back to a simpler and more secure pattern of society
in which the individual could assert more fully his own
independence. That is a strong tendency in our own Jef-
fersonian tradition which quite rightly purs such decisive
emphasis on man’s independence The irony*, of course, is
that Jefferson was himself a bnllnnt technological inno-
vator, as anyone w ho has explored Monticcllo w ould agree,
and it is unlikely that today Jefferson would fret much
about being folded, bent or mutilated by the computer It
is somewhat more likely that he would invent a better one.

The fact is that an honest inspection of history reveals
not so much a nostalgic senes of Golden Ages in winch
men led the Good Life as, on the contrary*, a rather dismal
series of golden opportunities that men foolishly passed up
which might have accomplished precisely that. AH of this
is intimately related to man's education, but is modem edu-
cation really relevant to the human condition 3

u8 / The Essence of Security

No age in history has ever had a thornier bout with
relevancy than ours, and the reason seems clear. We are
caught up in a new dimension of explosive change that has
no precedent in the one million years of man’s experience.
If we had been educated in third-century b.c. Athens, or in
fourth-century Byzantium or fourteenth-century Bologna,
we might reasonably have assumed that the education we
received as a child would still be meaningful in our old
age. Change took place, of course, even in the ancient and
medieval worlds, but the rate of change relative to a man’s
life span was slow enough to guarantee that the quantum of
knowledge acquired in youth would remain valid into old
age.

What has happened today is that the progression of tech-
nological and social change is no longer merely arithmetical
— it is geometric. An engineer, for example, will find that
ten years from his graduation fully half his expensively
acquired engineering education is already obsolete, and that
the other 50 percent of knowledge he will then require to
stay relevant has not even been discovered. This galloping
ratio of radical change is a problem not only for the en-
gineer. It is a problem for anyone: the poet, the philosopher,
the teacher — for anyone who wishes to remain relevant in
his own society.

None of us fully understands the inner dynamics of this
calculus of relevancy. More often than not we are content
simply to state the problem rather than to think hard about
the answers. It is easy enough to wring one’s hands over the
complicated issues of meaning and value that a time of rad-

On Gaps and Bridges / iry

leal change implies. It is much tougher to tackle these issues
honestly and humbly and w ork toward wise solutions

Sometimes we do not even state the problem in a wholly
realistic way- We fear that organization m modem society
is growing too big and too complex and that we are estab-
lishing management controls that are too massive We dc-
senhe complex organization as a depersonalized bureaucracy
and brand it an Orwellian nightmare. Bur it is possible that
exactly the reverse is the case, that some of our gravest
problems in society anse not from ov ermanagement but out
of undermanagement, that dcmocracv can become non-
partiriparing precisely to the degree that organic and
hierarchical management breaks down

Exploding urbanization, to rake a serious example, has
been a fact of life in the Western world for more than
two hundred years, it has brought in its wake massive social
turbulence and tension Xow it is sweeping the developed
world like a blight, but there is no evidence that man has
overmanaged this problem, there is much evidence that he
has undermanaged it.

As all forms of social, economic, pohncal and even re-
ligious organization grow larger and more complex, vve
might do well to ponder the fate of the Brontosaurus, the
most magnificent of all the dinosaurs lie grew to be eighty
feet long and was the most massive anatomical specimen of
antiquity He was a ease, how ever, of classic undemnnage-
ment, for though he weighed an incredible forty tons, he
had only a golf -ball-sized brain of some three ounces He
could not accommodate to change, could nor remain rel-

120 / The Essence of Security

evant to his environment, and magnificent as he was he
disappeared.

The observable fact is that most forms of social organi-
zation are growing more complex. But complexity itself is
not necessarily inferior to simplicity, and simple arrange-
ments, by the mere fact of their simplicity, are not invar-
iably more democratic. In the Judeo-Christian dispensation
the first human organization was a very simple one, one
man and one woman, one Adam and one Eve. The organiza-
tion was simple, but they managed to get one another into
an extraordinary amount of difficulty. Even the first fra-
ternal organization we read about was ideally simple. There
were two brothers, one Cain and one Abel; the arrangement
was very unbureaucratic, bur the outcome was classically
undemocratic.

All of this is immensely relevant to that generalized un-
easiness that we are all being drawn into a Kafkaesque
world in which science and technology encroach danger-
ously on the realm of the spirit. If there is a danger of
depersonalization in our society, then it is our rationally
protesting young who are well endowed to save us from
that threat. It is their special gift, and it is the world’s
special need.

Robert Frost, in one of his most pensive moods, wrote:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

The education of die young is unfortunately never a
detailed road map. It is a passport into a dense wood, filled

On Gap: and Bridges / m

with forked roads For our protesting younger generation,
miny of those roads trill be the ones less traveled hy. But
if they choose wisely, it can be a rewarding journey. In-
deed, it w ill be much more than a joume) ; it will be a dis-
cos ery. What they will discover is not that there is an
unbridgeable gap between the generations, but rather those
truths which we all, young and old alike, seek to know,
who w e are and Whose v ood this is in which w-e walk,

CHAPTER EIGHT

New Missions

Despite its awesome power and the world-wide sweep
of its activities, the basic mission of the Department of De-
fense is simply stated. That mission is military security; or,
more broadly, to maintain in constant readiness the military
forces necessary to protect the nation from attack, keep its
commitments abroad and support its foreign policy.

Beyond that central mission of combat readiness, how-
ever, security is a broad concept. During my seven years
in the Department it seemed to me that those vast resources
could contribute to the attack on our tormenting social

Ncio .Millions / uj

problems, both supporting our basic mission amt adding to
the quality of our national life. For, in the end, po\ err)
and social injustice may endanger our national security as
much as any military threat.

The Defense Department set out to male irs contribu-
tion through three programs “Open Housing/’ to break,
(lemn racial discrimination in ofT-basc housing for military
personnel, “Project 1 00,000/* to salvage each >car 100,000
young men who were caged and oppressed by poserty,
first for tuo )cars of military service and then for pro-
ductive cisilian lives. and "Project Transition,” to prepire
more of the three-quarters of a million men leasing miluar)
sersice annually for a posime role in socicts

Open housing was a most oh nous avenue for action,
since racial discnnimanon, despite recent legislative ad-
vances. remains an infection m our national life The Defense
Department, beginning with the courageous execute e order
of President Tniman which integrated the armed sen ices
m 1948. has been a powerful fulcrum m removing the bar-
riers to racial justice, not mere!) in the military but in the
country at large But the nation's road to equality is still
strewn with boulders of prejudice

Shonly after I became Secretary of Defense, I ashed
Gerhard A Gesell, a leading attorney, to direct a review of
progress toward equal opportunity in the armed forces.
His committee tools a hard, realistic I00V at the problem It
reported that substantial improvement hid been nude on
military bases, but it found that severe off-base disenmina-

124 / The Essence of Security

tion affected thousands of Negro servicemen and their fam-
ilies. This discrimination was most destructive in the field of
housing.

Open housing is a serious issue throughout our society.
But this intolerable racial discrimination affects military
personnel even more severely than it does the population at
large. The serviceman and his family, on limited compensa-
tion and under military orders, must move every few years.
While defending his nation he is singularly defenseless
against this bigotry.

My response to the Gesell Committee findings was to
issue a directive incorporating its recommendations. Com-
manders everywhere were asked to organize voluntary
programs to eliminate housing discrimination in the com-
munities surrounding their bases. In the Pentagon we turned
our minds to other problems.

Early in 1967 wc reviewed the results of that four-year-
old directive. Teams were sent to a dozen bases to look
into every aspect of equal opportunity. A special task force
was set up for the greater Washington area. Seventeen
thousand service families were surveyed and their answers
were analyzed. One fact became painfully clear: the vol-
untary program had failed, and failed miserably.

This failure we found intolerable. Our nation should not
and will not ask a Negro sergeant, for example, to risk his
life day after dangerous day in the heat and hardship of a
jungle war and then bring him home and compel him to
remain separated from his wife and his children because of
the hate and prejudice that parade under the pomposity of

AVv Missions / t2$

racial superiority. Vcc that is precisely what has been hap-
pening in this country. The color of the blood that our
men shed in the defense of Asia is all the same, t»m uhen
these men return home, it is not the color of their blood
that matters but the color of their skin.

Thousands of our Negro troops who have returned from
\ r ictnam arc victims of discrimination in nfT-basc housing
When there is adequate housing on the base, Negro men tn
uniform arc treated as all Americans should tie treated
When there is not, and the Negro must depend on the
civilian community for housing, he alt too often is denied
tins cqualit) of treatment Uccvuvc of his color he, his
faniil) and our national securuv suffer a penalty because of
the impaired morale of our fighting forces.

This ts a group of men who hate distinguished them-
selves in the service of their nation It is a fact that Negroes
often volunteer for the most difficult and hazardous assign-
ments It is a fact thit 20 percent of the Army men who
died tn Vietnam in 1967 were Negroes The Negro service-
man has been lo>al and responsible to Ins country, but the
people of his country have failed him

Our original v olunrary program floundered and fell apart.
Ir lacked sufficient leadership from the top. starting with
me, and going nght down through the senior echelon of
the Defense Establishment, and it lacked appropriately stiff
sanctions for violation of our anu discrimination policy.

We forged, therefore, a whole new set of tools to deal
with this failure. The first phase was to compile a nation-
wide census of open off-base rental housing for military

126 / The Essence of Security

personnel. The second phase was to mobilize throughout
the country effective community support for nondiscrim-
inatory military off-base housing. The greater Washington
metropolitan area, including Maryland and Virginia, was
chosen as our first objective. We wanted to make the area
surrounding the nation’s capital a model program, as it
should be, and we wanted to learn quickly all the lessons
we could that would assist us in the country at large.

Officials from the highest levels of the Defense Depart-
ment, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, the service Sec-
retaries, and senior commanders, met with realtors and
landlords of the area and put the matter to them squarely.
The extent of off-base housing discrimination was appalling.
The morale of Negro servicemen and their families was
being severely eroded. We told the landlords the Defense
Department could no longer tolerate the situation, and we
appealed to them for voluntary compliance with our non-
discriminatory housing policy. But we pointed out that
the situation as it stood was so unjust that, whether or not
we secured their voluntary compliance, we simply could
not permit the conditions to continue. If the landlords felt
they would not or could not comply, we were going to
have to proliibit any of our men — regardless of their race —
from signing rental agreements in housing units where such
discrimination was practiced.

Many proprietors complied voluntarily, but too many did
not. In many instances their position, while shortsighted,
was understandable. Some faced genuine economic pres-
sures. In any event, they did not comply, and we were

Wets Missions / n 7

compelled to take the only action open 10 us We prohibited
all military personnel from signing new leases or rental
agreements in their facilities. This applied a countervailing
economic pressure, and our open-housing program took on
an altogether new and positive direction In northern Vir-
ginia and Maryland uc more than trebled the number of
nondiscnmmarory units, from about 15,000 to 53,000 units
within 1 20 days.

The program is now at work clscv. here throughout the
nation There is an intensified program in California at this
writing. We gave particular emphasis to this state, not
merely because of the large number of Defense installations
and military personnel there, but because California among
the fourteen states with open-housing laws lud the lowest
percentage of apartments open to all races

Everywhere our approach has been the same We survey
the local situanun at each military base We request coop-
eration and seek voluntary comphincc The Department
will do everything possible to see that our military families
act as good tenants that they pay their obligations
promptly and that they respect the property of private
owners 1 am fully aware that the Defense Departnienr is
not a philanthropic foundation or a social-welfare institu-
tion. But the Department does not intend to let our Negro
servicemen and their families continue to suffer the in-
justices and indignities they hive in the past. I am certain
my successors will pursue the same policy

Project 100,000, our second undertaking with social pro-
grams. grew out of the appalling drafr rejection rate. In

128 / The Essence of Security

1966 about 1.8 million young men reached military service
age in the United States, but almost 600,000 — fully a third — •
failed to qualify under our draft standards. Some had med-
ical problems, but I was concerned particularly about
those tens of thousands who failed because of educational
deficiencies. In some areas the failure rate for draftees ran
as high as 60 percent, and for Negroes in some states it
exceeded 80 percent. What this clearly meant was that the
burden of military service was not being shouldered equally.
The inequities were serious: inequities by region, inequities
by race and inequities by educational level. What was even
worse was the obvious implication. If so massive a number
of our young men were educationally unqualified for even
the least complicated tasks of military service, how could
they reasonably be expected to lead productive and reward-
ing lives in an increasingly technological and highly skilled
society?

Department studies confirmed that a great number of
those rejected were the hapless and hopeless victims of
poverty. Serious poverty is not merely socially corrosive,
but is intrinsically self-perpetuating. Poor nations, like poor
individuals, cannot be helped until they begin to help them-
selves. But poverty is a social and political paralysis that
atrophies ambition and drains away hope. It saps the strength
of nations, not so much because it implies a lack of exploit-
able material resources, which often it does not, as because
it withers and weakens the human potential necessary to
develop them.

Poverty is not a simple concept, a mere absence of wealth.

New Missions / is?

It is a complex of debilitating conditions, each reinforcing
the other in an ever-tightening web of human impairment.
Illiteracy, disease, hunger and hopelessness arc character-
istics which of their own momentum spiral human aspira-
tions downward Poverty begets poverty, passing from
generation to generation in a cruel cycle of near-inevitahil-
ity. It endures until carefully designed outside assistance
intervenes and radically redirects its internal dynamics.

Internal upheaval all across tbc southern half of the planet
this past dccaJc has been related directly to the explosive
tensions that poverty spawns The other face of this com
is that the pesnlence of poverty r lias inferred our own
plentiful nation Poverty in the United States is a social
cancer, an exact metaphor, for ejneer grow s within a body,
hidden from view, its malevolent presence often unde-
tected Poverty in America does not readily show its face
to the world, for our society is conspicuously abundant
beyond belief. So psychologically unexpected is poverty in
the midst of overwhelming prosperity that it remains
largely unrecognized even by many Americans That one
out of every six Americans should be locked in its gnp
seems nearly incredible, yet it is tragically true. These 31
million Americans live in every' state, m every count)' and
in ever)' city of the nation. Nearly half of them arc chil-
dren, their lives still before them, and ycr already blighted
from the beginning if the poverty pattern in which they are
trapped is allow ed to play itself our.

Poverty abroad leads to unrest, to internal upheaval, to
violence and to the escalation of extremism, and it does

130 / The Essence of Security

the same within our own borders. Wc think of ourselves —
and rightly so — as a relatively stable and well-ordered
society, as a society dedicated to the rule of law, and as a
society free of the pathological need to resort to open
violence in the streets. Yet since the end of World War II
the governors of our states have had to call out military
forces, combat-equipped National Guard troops, more than
a hundred times to put down disorders that could not be
controlled by the police. In most of these emergencies
factors related directly to poverty were involved.

We need not look as far as Africa, or Asia, or Latin
America for poverty-induced tensions that erupt into irra-
tional violence. It has often happened right here in the
United States, and it is certain to happen many times again
until — and unless — the complex syndrome of poverty-in-
the-midst-of-plenty is better understood and ultimately
eliminated.

Poverty in America affects our national security, too, by
its appalling waste of talent. In the technological revolution
that is sweeping over the second half of our century the
prime national resource becomes more and more the po-
tential of the human brain. Innovation, technical break-
throughs, and research and development now affect defense
capabilities more than any other factors.

Only 14 percent of the more than three million men in
our armed forces fire weapons as their primary duty. A full
50 percent must be trained in technical skills. Human talent,
therefore, is our nation’s most essential resource. It can-
not be mined from the ground, or harvested from the fields,
or synthesized in a test tube. The 32 million Americans

iVexr Mintons / 13 r

who are poor were nor bom without intellectual pot cut ill.
They were not brain-poor at birth, bur only privilege -poor,
advamage-poor, opportunity -poor To the extent that this
nation loses the performance potential of these millions of
human beings, this nation’s ultimate security is diminished.

Within those eomideranons, the startling draft rejection
rate represented an e\en more measurable and concrete
example of the manner in which poverty has affected our
national security'. What many of these men badly needed
was a sense of personal achievement, a sense of succeeding
at a task, a sense of their own intrinsic potential They had
potential, but the poverty virus had paralysed it in many
of them They grew up in an atmosphere of drift and
discouragement It was not simply the sometimes squalid
ghettos of their external environment that debilitated them,
but an internal and more destructive ghetto of personal
disillusionment and despair a ghetto of the spirit Chronic
failures in school throughout their childhood, they were
destined to a sense of defeat and decay in a skill -oriented
nation that requires from its manpow cr pool an increasing
index of competence, discipline and self-confidence-

Many of these men, we decided, could be saved. The
Department set out to give them the benefit of its experi-
ence in educational innovation and on-the-job training, in an
atmosphere of high motivation and morale, and transformed
them into competent military personnel. Beyond that,
after their tour of duty, they could return to civilian life
equipped with new skills and attirudes and thus break out
of the self-perpetuating poverty cydc.

After close Study. I was convinced that at least 1 00,000

i $2 / The Essence of Security

men a year who were being rejected for military sendee,
including tens of thousands of volunteers, could be ac-
cepted. To make this possible, I felt we needed only to
use fully and imaginatively the resources at hand. The
Defense Department today is the largest single educational
complex in history. The services provide enlisted men
with professional training in some 1,500 different skills in
more than 2,000 separate courses. In addition, 65,000 of-
ficers a year continue their professional education. The
Department operates 327 dependents’ schools around the
world, employing 6,800 classroom teachers for 166,000
students, malting it the ninth largest U.S. school system,
with a budget of $90 million. More than 30 correspondence-
school centers are sponsored by the military departments,
offering over 2,000 courses and enrolling nearly a million
students scattered about the globe. The United States
Armed Forces Institute currently has enrolled more than
250,000 students in hundreds of courses ranging from the
elementary school level through college. During the five
years through 1967, an annual average of 95,000 individuals
earned a high school diploma or its equivalent through this
hugely beneficial program.

This immense educational complex exists specifically for
the needs of the Defense Department, but it nevertheless
has a gigantic spin-off into American society as a whole.
The services return over half a million personnel annually
to the country’s skilled manpower pool. A very substantial
number of civilians currently employed in such skilled
occupational fields as electronics, engineering, transporta-

Nev: Missions / 133

tion management, machine-tool operation, automotive and
aircraft maintenance, and the building trades — to mention
only a few — have been trained in the armed forces

Thus the imperatives of national security in our tech-
nological age make the Defense Department the world’s
largest educator of highly skilled men Those same im-
peratives require tint it also be the world's most efficient
educator. As a result, the Defense Department has pio-
neered some of the most advanced teaching techniques
Indeed, it has been in the vanguard of a senes of innova-
tions in education technology Its findings and its philos-
ophy arc making a significant contnbunon to the
modernization that is sweeping throughout the American
school sj stem.

One of the Department’s key concepts holds that tradi-
tional classroom training is often largely irrelevant to actual
on-the-job performance requirements By pruning from
existing courses all noncsscnoal mfornunon, we found that
we could not only substantially shorten the training period,
hut, more important, we could increase dramatically the
students’ success ar learning

We experimented with programed instruction, carefully
designed and matched specifically against on-the-job re-
quirements, and allowing the student to proceed at his own
individual pace rather than merely to be herded along at
an arbitrarily determined group pace We have broken
tlcw pedagogical ground in the Defense Department m
order to accomplish this So successful, for example, w as the
use of dosed -circuit television in Defense training that the

1 34 / The Essence of Security

Army established an entire individual-training television
network. The great merit of closed-circuit TV is its flex-
ibility. A low-aptitude student can use video tapes as an
aid to his formal instruction and end by becoming as pro-
ficient as a high-aptitude student.

Indeed, the whole concept of “low-aptitude” and “high-
aptitude” now needs redefinition. What do these designa-
tions really mean? One thing is certain: they mean
something very different from what we have believed in
the past. There is now ample evidence that many aptitude
evaluations have less to do with how well the student can
learn than with the cultural value system of the educator.
Too many instructors look at a reticent or apathetic or
even hostile student and conclude: “He is a low-aptitude
learner.” In most cases it would be more realistic for the
instructor to take a hard honest look in the mirror and
conclude: “I am a low-aptitude teacher.”

Students differ greatly in their learning patterns. It is the
educator’s responsibility to become familiar with that pat-
tern in each individual case and to build on it. More ex-
actly, it is the educator’s responsibility to create the most
favorable conditions under which the student himself can
build on his own learning pattern at his own pace. Ulti-
mately it is not the teacher who teaches at all; it is the
student who teaches liimself. Aquinas in the thirteenth
century and Aristode fifteen hundred years before him
both suggested that a teacher cannot, strictly speaking, be
the cause of the student’s knowledge, but only the occasion
of it. Modern educational psychology confirms this. But

iVr*’ Missions f 13;

instead of striding to be the inspiring occasions of their
students* knowledge, too many teachers end by causing
their students to retreat into a mental fog of boredom, con-
fusion and noncomprehension. This nux of understandable
reactions is then all too often simply labeled “low-aptitude *'
We discos ered within the Department of Defense that
the prime reason many men “fail” the aptitude tests given
at the time of induction is simply that these rests arc geared
to the psychology of traditional, formal, classroom, tcachcr-
paccd Instruction Thtsc tests inevitably reflect the cul-
tural value systems and verbal patterns of affluent American
society That is why sc> many young men from poverty
backgrounds do poorly in the tests It is not because they
do not possess basic and perhaps even brilliant intelligence,
but because their cultural environment is so radically dif-
ferent from that assumed by the designers of the tests
ft is, for example, a generally accepted value of Amer-
ican society to want to “achieve” something in life That is
a sound value, but it is a vatuc alien ro many young people
from poverty-encrusted environments In their world,
achievement is seldom advanced as a value, because it does
not exist as a realistic possibility. Such a person appears to
have “low aptitude” by conventional standards since he
seems poorly motivated. But clearly a more accurate w ay to
measure his “aptitude” is to place him in 1 situation that
offers the encouragement he has never had licforc That
means a good teacher and a good course of instruction, w ell
supported bv self-paced, audio-visual aids. It also means less
formal theoretical instruction in the classroom and more

136 / The Essence of Security

practical on-the-job training. Under these conditions the so-
called “low-aptitude” student can succeed.

Our goal was to take 40,000 men in the first year; we
actually took 49,000. They entered all the services: Army,
Navy, Air Force and the Marine Corps. What sort of
background did these men come from? About 60 percent
were whites and about 40 percent Negroes. Their average
age was twenty-one. Thirty percent of them were unem-
ployed at the time they came to us, and an additional 16
percent were earning less than $60 a week.

What this means is that more than half of these men
had been held in the grip of poverty. Nor is that surpris-
ing; their average reading score was on a bare sixth-grade
level and 14 percent of them read at a third-grade level or
less. Many were poorly motivated when they reached us;
they lacked initiative, pride and ambition. If nothing were
done to give them a strong sense of their own worth and
potential, they, their wives and their children almost in-
evitably would be the unproductive recipients of some form
of welfare payments ten years from now. I want to repeat:
we took these men into the service because we were con-
vinced that given the proper environment and training
they could contribute just as much to the defense of their
country as men from the more advantaged segments of our
society.

To say that we were encouraged by the first year’s re-
sults would be an understatement. Ninety-eight percent of
our traditional categories of recruits successfully graduated
from basic training during the year. The successful gradua-

iVn? Motions / tyj

non rare of these 49,000 new-eaxegory men was 96 per-
cent. I insisted that these men should never he singled out
or stigmatized as a special group Technically, and far our
own internal record-keeping, men who formerly would
have been rejected arc now termed New' Standards men
Dut the men themselves arc never told that they arc in this
category, it U imperative tint they believe in themselves
and their own potential They obviously cannot do that if
\ve treat them with anything remotely suggesting con-
descension

The plain fact is that Project 100,000 is succeeding be-
yond even the most hopeful expectations. Many' of the
commanders report that these men arc turning our to lie
even more highly’ intimated than sonic servicemen with
much more privileged backgrounds These were the initial
results, and are immensely’ encouraging. But obviously the
real test is going to come later, w hen these men tnov c back
into civilian society'. How- will they fare then’ Will the
vital sense of achievement and sclf-confidcncc they have
experienced in their military' service, as well as the skills
they have learned, move them forward in society, or will
they return to the depressing downward-spiraling pnvcrtv
phenomenon that plagues our urban ghettos and our rural
pockets of economic stagnation 3

l-ast fall we opened a careful follow-up study* to test
conclusively the ultimate outcome of Project 1 00.000 At
least a decade of careful measurement of performance by
men both in and out of the services will be required, but 1
am willing to make a prediction. I am convinced that the

1 3% / The Essence of Security

Project 100,000 men will continue to do a fully creditable
job in the services, and that on return to civilian life their
earning capacity and their over-all achievement in society
will be two or three times what they would have been had
there been no such program. Hundreds of thousands of
men can be salvaged from the blight of poverty, and the
Defense Department, with no detriment whatever to its
primary role, is particularly well equipped to salvage them.
The benefit to our society and to the ultimate roots of our
security will be enormous.

The third Defense Department program in this field has
the same goal as the second basic purpose behind Project
100,000, that is, the preparation of men for a productive
life as civilians after discharge. Many of the more than
750,000 who leave the services annually can move readily
into civilian jobs, but a significant number face genuine
problems. A survey showed that about 50 percent of those
about to leave the service needed and wanted help in
making the transition.

To provide that help we created a voluntary program,
Project Transition, for men with 30 to 180 days of service
time remaining. The plan gives priority to certain groups: to
those disabled in battle; to those with no previous civilian
occupation; to combat-arms servicemen with no civilian-
related skill; to those who have such a skill but who require
additional training or upgrading; and finally to those who
desire a completely new civilian skill regardless of their
current training status. The program meets four basic needs
of the man leaving the service: counseling, skill enhance-
ment, education and job placement.

/vVtr .1 httions / /_j^

Other federal agencies such as the Labor Depirrment,
Health, Education. and Welfare, and the Postal Service,
as well as state and local agencies, agreed to help, A number
of police departments around the nation, for example, arc
participating not only with professional advice and tech-
nical assistance hut witli solid job offers as well Though the
program was still in its pilot stage as this book was being
prepared, it clearly has tremendous potential, and indus-
trial leaders throughout the nation have alreadv expressed
enthusiasm for the idea Furthermore, the Ford Foundation
has offered to w ork closely w ith us tn solving the problems
connected with placing the right v cteran in the right job
Every mm who has served ht> country m the armed forces
deserves the opportunity to move back usefully and pro-
ductive!)' into endian life

The point w e must realize is this there is no question but
that the economic, social and educational legislation of the
current period eventually will transform American socictv
immensely' for the betrer. But the very magnitude of the
task will require a decade or two tiefore the full effects
can lie felt Tim means that the present generation of under-
privileged youth of all races, caught in the self-perpetuating
trap of poverty, are in danger of being left out of these
eventual benefits The United States cannot be satisfied with
that situation, w c must find w avs to assist people now , even
before our present legislation can reach its full potential for
economic and social improvement.

This is manifestly not primarily' a Department of Defense
but a national responsibility The Department’s primary
responsibility, to repeat, is the security of this nation. Bur

i4° / The Essence of Security

in the last analysis the foundation of that security is a
stable social structure. The Defense Department has the
potential to contribute to the development of such a struc-
ture without compromising the combat readiness of its
forces.

These three social programs are the kinds of programs
that will bolster the security of this nation. They are the
kinds of programs that will reduce the criticism that the
United States is often bludgeoned with internationally,
criticism — some of it justified — that grows out of the dis-
crepancy between our traditional preaching of the prin-
ciples of liberty and equality and our obvious lapses in
the practice of those two bedrock constitutional guarantees.
They are partial answers to the basic question: can our
present American society afford to meet simultaneously its
responsibilities both at home and abroad? I say again that we
can. That we may choose not to attempt to is another
matter entirely.

Let us not blame the lack of effort on the myth that we
cannot do all that needs doing, for the fact is, we can. We
can curb aggression abroad; we can meet our pressing social
problems here at home; and we can do both at the same
time if we will use wisely the resources we have.

CHAPTER NINE

The Essence of Security

FrOM all chat has been saul here, some of the basic com-
ponents of power remain obwouslv and tragically un-
changed Great military might remains indispensable
Because science has produced the new weapons of colossal
destruction, the United States must maintain its nuclear
arsenal, not only must it be maintained, but it must be so
large as to deter any nation from forcing its use. Because
there are those who still would test our will and undermine
us slow 1) with subversion and limited wars, wc must arm
with conventional forces in common defense with our
allies. These are the old realities, shaped to the si orld of

14 2 / The Essence of Security

today. But there are new realities as well, and we have
been too slow to recognize them. For the fact remains that
a negative and narrow notion of defense still clouds our
vision and distorts national policy.

There is among us an almost ineradicable tendency to
think of our security problem as being exclusively a mili-
tary problem, and to think of the military problem as being
exclusively a weapons or manpower problem. The truth
is that contemporary man still conceives of war and peace
in much the same stereotyped terms that his ancestors did.
The fact that these ancestors, both recent and remote, were
conspicuously unsuccessful at avoiding war and enlarging
peace doesn’t seem to reduce our capacity for cliches. We
still tend to conceive of national security almost solely as a
state of armed readiness, a vast, awesome arsenal of weap-
onry. We still tend to assume that it is primarily this purely
military ingredient that creates security. We are haunted
by this concept of military hardware.

How limited a concept this actually is becomes apparent
when one ponders the kind of peace that exists, for example,
between the United States and Canada. Here arc two
modern nations, highly developed technologically, each with
immense territory, both enriched with great reserves of nat-
ural resources, each militarily sophisticated and yet divided
by an unguarded frontier of thousands of miles. There is
not the remotest set of circumstances in any imaginable time
frame of the future in which these two nations would wage
war on one another. It is so unthinkable an idea as to be
absurd; but why is that so?

The Fjimce of Security /

Canada and the United States are at peace for reasons
that have nothing to do with mutual military readiness We
are at peace, truly at peace, because of the vast fund of
compitthlc beliefs, common principles and slured ideals.
We ha\ c our differences and our diversity, but the ■whole
point is that our mutual bis is for peace has nothing w har-
cvcr to do with military hardware

Obviously, and to repeat, tlus ts not to say that the con-
cept of military deterrence is no longer relevant in the
contemporary world Unhappily, it is still critically relevant
with respect to our potential adversaries, but it has no
relevance between the United States and Canada We are
not adversaries, we arc not going to become adversaries,
and it is not mutual military' deterrence that beeps us from
Incoming adversaries. It is mutual respect for common
principles I mention this, as obvious as it is, simply as a
bind of reduetto ad abtitrdum of the concept that military
hardware is the exclusive or even the primary ingredient of
permanent peace in the mid -twentieth cenrury.

In the United States, since 1961, we have achieved a con-
siderably improved balance in our total military posture
Thar was the mandate I received from Presidents Kennedy
and Johnson, and with their support and that of Congress
we were able to create a strengthened force structure of
land, sea and air components, with a vast increase in
mobility and materiel, and with a massive superiority in
nuclear retaliatory power over any combination of potential
adversaries. Our capabilities for nuclear, conventional and
counttrsubvcrsiv c war have all been broadened and im-

144 / The Essence of Security

proved, and we accomplished this through military budgets
that were, in fact, lesser percentages of our Gross National
Product than in the past.

From the standpoint of combat readiness the United
States has never been militarily stronger, and we intend to
maintain that readiness. But if we think carefully about
the matter, it is clear that this purely military posture is
not the central element in our security. A nation can reach
the point at which it does not buy more security for itself
simply by buying more military hardware, and we are at
that point. The decisive factor for a powerful nation al-
ready adequately armed is the character of its relationships
that preserve its own intrinsic security.

First, we have to help protect those developing countries
which genuinely need and request our help and which as
an essential precondition are willing and able to help them-
selves. Second, we have to encourage and achieve a more
effective partnership with those nations which can and
should share international peace-keeping responsibilities.
Third, we must do all we realistically can to reduce the risk
of conflict with those who might be tempted to take up arms
against us. Let us examine these three sets of relationships
in detail: first, the developing nations.

Roughly one hundred countries today are caught up in
the difficult transition from traditional to modern societies.
There is no uniform rate of progress among them, and they
range from primitive societies, fractured by tribalism and
held feebly together by the slenderest of political sinews,
to relatively sophisticated countries well on the road to

The Essence of Security / #45

agricultural sufficiency and industrial competence. This
sweeping surge of development, particularly across the
southern half of the globe, his no parallel in history. It has
turned traditionally listless areas of the world into seething
caldrons of change On the whole it has nor been a very
peaceful process

In the eight years through late 1966 alone there were no
less than 1S4 internationally significant outbreaks of vio-
lence, each of them specifically designed as a serious
challenge to the authority or the very existence of the gov-
ernment in question. Light-two different governments
were directly involved, and what is stnUing is that onlj ij
of these 164 significant resorts to violence were mihtarv
conflicts between two states, and not a single one of the
164 conflicts was a fomiall) declared war Indeed, there
has not been a formal declaration of war anyw here in the
world since World War II

The planet is becoming a more dangerous place to tive
on not merely because of a potential nuclear holocaust but
also because of the large number of dc facto conflicts and
because the trend of such conflicts is growing rather than
diminishing At the beginning of 1958 there were 13 pro-
longed insurgencies going on around the world As of
February, 1966, there were 40. Further, the total number of
outbreaks of violence has increased each year in 1958
there w ere 34, in 19155 there w ere 58

What is most significant of all is that there is a direcr
and constant relationship between the incidence of violence
and the economic status of the countries afflicted The

146 / The Essence of Security

World Bank divides nations on the basis of per capita
income into four categories: rich, middle-income, poor and
very poor. The rich nations are those with a per capita
income of $750 or more per year. The current U.S. level
is more than $2,900, and there are 27 of these rich nations.
They possess 75 percent of the world’s wealth, though
roughly only 25 percent of the world’s population. Since
1958 only one of these 27 nations has suffered a major
internal upheaval on its own territory.

But observe what happens at the other end of the eco-
nomic scale. Among the 38 very poor nations, those with a
per capita income of under $100 a year, no less than 32
have suffered significant conflicts. Indeed, they suffered an
average of two major outbreaks of violence per country in
the eight-year period. That is a great deal of conflict, and,
what is worse, it has been predominantly conflict of a pro-
longed nature.

The trend holds predictably constant in the case of two
other categories, the poor and middle-income nations.
Since 1958, 87 percent of the very poor nations, 69 percent
of the poor nations and 48 percent of the middle-income
nations suffered serious violence. There can be no question
but that there is a relationship between violence and eco-
nomic backwardness, and the trend of such violence is up,
not down.

Perhaps it would be somewhat reassuring if the gap
between the rich nations and the poor nations were closing
and if economic backwardness were significantly receding.
But it is not; the economic gap is widening. By 1970 over

The Essence of Security / >47

one-half of the world's population will live in the inde-
pendent nations which encircle the southern half of the
planet. But this hungering half of the human race will hy
then command only onc-sixth of the world’s total of goods
and services By 1975 the dependent children of these na-
tions alone, children under fifteen years of age. will equal
the total population of the de\ eloped nations to the north
Even in our own abundant societies we hate reason
enough to worry over the tensions that coil and tighten
among underprivileged young people and finally flail our
in delinquency and ennie What arc we to expect from a
hemisphere of youth where mounting frustrations are
likely to fester into eruptions of \10lencc and extremism 1
Annual per capita income m roughly half of the eight)
underdo eloped nations that are nicmlicrs of the World
Bank is rising hy a paltr) 1 percent a year or less By the
end of the century these nations, at their present rates
of growth, will reach 3 per capita income of hardy 5170
a year. By the same criteria the United States will have
attuned a per capita income of $4,500

ITie conclusion to all of this is inescapable Giv en the cer-
tain connection between economic stagnation and the
incidence of violence, the ) cars that he ahead for the nations
in the southern half of the globe look ominous. This would
be true even if nr» threat of Communist subversion existed,
as it clrarlv does Both Moscow* and Peking, how tier lursh
their internal differences, regard the modernization process
as an ideal environment for the growth of Comm u mam
Their experience with subversive internal war is extendi e.

t/fS / The Essence of Security

and they have developed a considerable array of both doc-
trine and practical measures in the art of political violence.

It is clearly understood that certain Communist nations
are capable of subverting, manipulating and finally direct-
ing for their own ends the wholly legitimate grievances of
a developing society. But it would be a gross oversimplifica-
tion to regard Communism as the central factor in every
conflict throughout the underdeveloped world. Of the 149
serious internal insurgencies in those eight years under dis-
cussion, Communists were involved in only 58 of them, 38
percent of the total, and this includes 7 instances in which a
Communist regime was itself the target of the uprising.
Whether Communists are involved or not, violence any-
where in a taut world threatens the security and stability of
nations half a globe away.

But neither conscience nor sanity itself suggests that
the United States is, should or could be the Global
Gendarme. Quite the contrary, experience confirms what
human nature suggests, that in most instances of internal
violence the local people themselves are best able to deal
directly with the situation within the framework of their
own traditions. The United States has no mandate from on
high to police the world and no inclination to do so. There
have been classic cases in which our own deliberate non-
action was the wisest action of all. Where our help is not
sought, it is seldom prudent to volunteer.

Certainly we have no charter to rescue floundering
regimes which have brought violence on themselves by
deliberately refusing to meet the legitimate expectations

The Essence of Security / I -fy

of their citizenry. T urther, throughout the next decade
adv ancmg technolog)’ w ill reduce the requirement for bases
and staging rights at particular locations abroad, and the
v. hole partem of forward deployment will gradually change.
Though ail these caveats are clear enough, the irreducible
fact remains that our security is rehted directly to the
security of the newly developing world, and our role must
be precisely this, to help provide security to those develop*
mg nations which genuinely need and request our help and
which demonstrably are willing and able to help them*
selves. The rvh is rhar vie do nor alu ays grasp rhe meaning
of security in this context

In a modernizing society security means development
Secant) is not military Hardw arc, though it may include it,
security is nor military force, though ir may involve it. se*
cunty is not traditional military activity, though it may
encompass it Security is development, and without de*
velopmcnt there can be no security A developing nation
that docs not, in fact, develop situpl) cannot remain secure
for the intractable reason that its own citizenry cannot
shed its human nature

If security implies anything, it impbes a minimal meas-
ure of order and stability. Without internal development
of at least a minimal degree, order and stability are im-
possible. They arc impossible because human nature cannot
he frustrated indefinitely It reacts because it must, that is
what we do not always understand and what governments
of modernizing nations do not always understand

But by emphasizing that securir)' arises front develop-

iyo / The Essence of Security

ment I do not deny that an underdeveloped nation can be
subverted from within or be the victim of aggression from
without or be victim of a combination of the two. This can
happen, and to prevent any or all of these conditions a
nation does require appropriate military capabilities to deal
with the specific problem.

The specific military problem, however, is only a narrow
facet of the broader security problem. Military force can
help provide law and order, but only to the degree that a
basis for law and order already exists in the developing
society, a basic willingness on the part of the people to
cooperate. Law and order is the shield behind which de-
velopment, the central fact of security, can be achieved.

We are not playing a semantic game with these words;
the trouble is that wc have been lost in a semantic jungle
for too long and have come to identify security with ex-
clusively military phenomena and most particularly with
military hardware. It just isn’t so, and we need to accom-
modate ourselves to the facts of the matter if we want to
see security survive and grow in the .southern half of the
globe.

Development means economic, social and political prog-
ress. It means a reasonable standard of living, and reasonable
in this context requires continual redefinition; what is
reasonable in an earlier stage of development will become
unreasonable in a later stage. As development progresses,
security progresses, and when the people of a nation have
organized their own human and natural resources to pro-
vide themselves with what they need and expect out of life,

The nsfence of Security /

and Ime learned to compromise peacefully among' com-
peting demands In the larger national Interest, then their
resistance to disorder and violence nil! enormously in-
crease. Conversely, the tragic need of desperate men to
resort to force to achieve the inner imperatives of human
decency Mill diminish

] have mentioned that the role of the United States
must be to help provide security to these mode miring
nations, providing they need and request our help and arc
clearly Milling and able to help themselves Cut what
should our help be 5 Clear!) it should he help toward de-
velopmenr In the military sphere that involves two broad
categories of assistance We must help the developing
nation with such training and equipment as arc necessary
to maintain the protective shield behind which development
can go forward The dimensions of that shield must vary
from country to country Whit is essential, though, is thjt
it be a shield and not a capictty for external aggression

Tlic second and perhaps less understood category of
military assistance m a modernizing nation is training in
civ icacnon, another one of those semantic puzzles Too few
Americans and too few officials in dev eloping nations really
comprehend what military civic action means. Essentially,
it means using indigenous military forces for nontradinonal
military projects, projects that are useful to the local pop-
ulation in fields such as education, public works, health,
sanitation and agriculture — indeed, anything connected
with economic or social progress

It has had some impressive results In a recent four-year

1 52 / The Essence of Security

period around the world U.S.-assisted civic-action programs
constructed or repaired more than ten thousand miles of
roads, built over a thousand schools and hundreds of hos-
pitals and clinics, and provided medical and dental care to
approximately four million people. What is importaut is
that all this was done by indigenous men in uniform, and
quite apart from the projects themselves the program power-
fully alters the negative image of the military man as the
oppressive preserver of the stagnant status quo.

Assistance in the purely military sense, though, is far from
enough; economic assistance is essential. President Johnson
has been determined that U.S. aid be hardheaded and real-
istic, that it must deal directly with the roots of under-
development and not merely attempt to alleviate the symp-
toms. The principle of the entire aid program is that U.S.
economic help, no matter what its magnitude, is futile unless
the country in question is resolute in making the primary
effort itself. That is the criterion and ought to be the crucial
condition for all our future assistance.

Only the developing nations themselves can take the
fundamental measures that make outside assistance mean-
ingful. These measures are often unpalatable and frequendy
call for political courage and decisiveness. But to fail to
undertake painful but essential reform inevitably leads to
far more painful revolutionary violence. Our economic
assistance is designed to offer a reasonable alternative to that
violence. It is designed to help substitute peaceful progress
for tragic internal conflict.

The United States intends to be compassionate and gen-

The Esterce of Security / /yj

erous in this effort, hut it is not an effort jc can carry ex-
clusively by itself. Tims u must look to those nations which
have reached the potnr of self-sustaining prosperity to
increase their contribution to the development and thus to
the security of the modernizing world

This brings us tn the second set of relationships that l
mennoned at the outset: it is the policy of the United States
to encourage and achieve a more cffecriie partnership with
those nations which can and should share international
peace-keeping responsibilities Amenta has devoted a higher
projKirtion of its Gross National Product to its military
establishment than any other major free world nation and
this was tme c\cn before our increased expenditures in
Southeast Asia Over the last few years we has e had as many
men in uniform as all the nations of Western Europe com-
bined, though they have a population half again greater
than our ow n

The American people arc not going to shirk their obliga-
tions in any pin of the world, but dearly thc> cannot be
expected to bear a disproportionate share of the common
burden indefinitely. If, for example, other nations really
bebev e, as they say they do, that it ts in the common interest
to deter the expansion of Ucd China’s economic and political
control beyond its nanonal boundaries, then they must
take a more active role in guarding the defense penmeter

Let me be perfectly clear. This is not to question the
policy of neutralism or nonabgnment of any particular
ration. Rather it is to emphasize that the independence of
such nations can in the end be folly safeguarded only by'

>54 / The Essence of Security

collective agreements among themselves and their neigh-
bors. The day is coining when no one nation, however
powerful, can undertake by itself to keep the peace outside
its own borders. Regional and international organizations
for peace-keeping are as yet rudimentary, but they must
grow in experience and be strengthened by deliberate and
practical cooperative action. The Organization of the Amer-
ican States in the Dominican Republic, the more than thirty
nations contributing troops or supplies to assist the Govern-
ment of South Vietnam, indeed even the parallel efforts of
the United States and the Soviet Union in the Pakistan-lndia
conflict — these efforts together with those of the UN are
the first attempts to substitute multinational for unilateral
policing of violence. They point to the peace-keeping pat-
terns of the future. We must not merely applaud the idea;
we must dedicate talent, resources and hard practical think-
ing to its implementation.

In Western Europe, an area whose burgeoning economic
vitality stands as a monument to the wisdom of the Marshall
Plan, the problems of security are neither static nor wholly
new. Fundamental changes are under way, though certain
inescapable realities remain.

The conventional forces of NATO, for example, still
require a nuclear backstop far beyond the capability of any
Western European nation to supply, and the United States,
as I pointed out earlier, is fully committed to provide that
major nuclear deterrent. The European members of the
Alliance, however, have a natural desire to participate more
actively in nuclear planning. A central task of the Alliance,

Tbc Essence of Scarcity / / //

therefore, is ro wort out the relationships ami institutions
through which shared nuclear planning can be effective, A
practical and promising start has been nude in the Special
Committee of NATO Defense Ministers. Common plan-
ning and consultation arc essential aspens of any sensible
substitute ro rhe unworkable and dangerous alternative of
independent national nuclear forces within the Alliance,
and even beyond the Alliance we must find the means to
prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons That « a clear
imperam c.

Of course, there arc risks in nonproliferation arrange-
ments, bur they cannot lie compared with the infinitely
greater risks that would an«c out of the increase in nanona!
nuclear stockpiles In the calculus of risk, to proliferate in-
dependent national nuclear forces is not snnpl> an arith-
metical addition of danger \% c w ould not merely be adding
up nsks, we would be tnsancls tvmltiplsvng them

If we seriously intend to pass on a world to our children
tint is not threatened bv nuclear holocaust, we must come
to gnps with the problem of proliferation. A reasonable
nonproliferation agreemenr is feasible, fur there k no ad-
versary with whom we do not share a common interest in
avoiding mutual destruction triggered by an irresponsible
“nth” pow er.

We come now to the third and last see of relanorohips the
United Stares must deal w uh, those w ith nations w ho might
be tempted to take up arms against us These relationships
call for realism, but realism k not a hardened, inflctible,
unimaginative attitude The reahsne mind is restlessly crca-

/ 5 6 / The Essence of Security

tive, free of naive delusions but full of practical alternatives.

There are practical alternatives to our current relation-
ships with both the Soviet Union and Red China. A vast
ideological chasm separates us from them and, to a degree,
separates them from one another. There is nothing to be
gained from our seeking an ideological rapprochement. But
breaching the isolation of great nations like Red China, even
when that isolation is largely of their own making, reduces
the danger of potentially catastrophic misunderstandings
and increases the incentive on both sides to resolve disputes
by reason rather than by force.

There exist many ways in which we can build bridges
toward nations who would cut themselves off from mean-
ingful contact with us. We can do so with properly bal-
anced trade relations, diplomatic contacts, and in some cases
even by exchanges of military observers. We have to know,
though, where it is we want to place this bridge, what sort
of traffic we want to travel over it, and on what mutual
foundations the structure can be designed. There are no
one-cliff bridges; if you are going to span a chasm, you have
to rest the structure on both cliffs.

Cliffs, generally speaking, are rather hazardous places.
Some people arc afraid even to look over the edge, but in a
thermonuclear world we cannot afford political acrophobia.
President Johnson put the matter squarely: by building
bridges to those who make themselves our adversaries “we
can help gradually to create a community of interest, a
community of trust and a community of effort.”

With respect to a community of effort, let me suggest a

The Csscnce of Security / / j'j

concrete proposal for our own present young generation in
the United States. It is a committed and dedicated genera-
tion; it has proven that by its enormously impressive per-
formance in the Peace Corps ov erseas and by its tv illingncss
to volunteer for a final assault on such poverty and lack of
opportunity as still remain in our own country.

As matters stand, our present Selective Service System
normally draws on only’ a minority of eligible young men.
That is an inequity’, and it seems to me that w c could move
toward remedying that inequity by asking every' young
person in the United States to give two y r eats of service to
his country', whether in one of the military services, in the
Peace Corps or in some other volunteer dev clopmcmal work
at home or abroad We could encourage other countries to
do the same, and we could work out exchange programs
much as the Peace Corps is already planning to do
While this is not an altogether new suggestion, it has
been criticized as inappropriate while we arc engaged in
a shooting war I believe precisely' the opposite to be the
case, it is more appropriate now than ever, for it would
underscore what our whole purpose is in Vietnam and,
indeed, anywv here in the world w here coercion or injustice
or lack of decent opportunity holds sway It w otild make
meaningful the central concept of security, a world of
decency’ and development where every man can feel that
his personal horizon is nmmed with hope

Mutual interest, mutual trust and mutual effort— -these
are the goals Can we achieve these goals with the Soviet
Union and with Red China’ Gan they achieve them with

iy8 / The Essence of Security

one another? The answer to these questions lies in the
answer to an even more fundamental question: Who is
man? Is he a rational animal? If he is, then the goals can
ultimately be achieved; if he is not, then there is little point
in making the effort.

All the evidence of history suggests that man is indeed a
rational animal, but with a nearly infinite capacity for folly.
His liistory seems largely a halting but persistent effort to
raise his reason above his animality. He draws blueprints
for Utopia but never quite gets it built. In the end he plugs
away obstinately with the only building material really
ever at hand: his own part-comic, part-tragic, part-cussed,
part-glorious nature. I, for one, would not count a global
free society out. Coercion, after all, merely captures man.
Freedom captivates him.

>Jc

Epilogue

ITL[t more tlun a million yean of life on earth man
has at list reached i point where if he is ro survive he must
begin better ro understand the intrinsic imperatives of
security There are two reasons whv I believe he will
First, the technological revolution has burned lustorj
forward so rapidly in our own lifetime that vve can now
grasp more realistically the utter futility of unlimited war
A victory of sorts was possible in the first two unlimited
world wars. No meaningful victory is even conceivable m
a third unlimited world war, for no nation can possiblv win
a full-scale thermonuclear exchange. The rv» o w nrld pow ers
•W

160 / The Essence of Security

that have now achieved a mutual assured-destruction capa-
bility fully realize that. And however imperfect may be
the state of peace today, it is crucially important that there
should be that full realization, for it results in restraint in
lesser conflicts. The United States and the Soviet Union,
though in serious confrontation with one another’s objec-
tives in the crisis situations in Berlin, Cuba, the Middle
East and Vietnam, have acted — and continue to act — with a
realistic degree of restraint. That is a significant step for-
ward on the path to greater global rationality.

A significant step backward on that same path would be
the further proliferation of nuclear weapons. For that
process geometrically increases the risk of suicidal miscal-
culation. Sane leaders in sane nations have the strongest
possible motive for prescribing every possible diplomatic
antidote for the poison of proliferation. Reasonable agree-
ments in this field are feasible, and must be pursued with
relentless perseverance. The most profound problem the
non-nuclear nations face is the psychological difficulty of
comprehending the inherent futility of a nuclear arsenal in
the face of the strategic realities and the requirement for
political courage to act accordingly.

The second reason for my belief that security is more
within man’s grasp in our particular era — as permanently
dangerous an era as it self-evidently remains — is that we
are beginning better to understand that stability of relation-
ships among rich nations is affected by the stability of the
institutions of the poor nations. And, in the long run,

Eptlogut / t6i

stability in the poor nations is a function of dev clopment.
That is obvious enough in the case of those Lmpo\ crashed
nations whose peoples are seething with growing frustra-
tions, nations racked with famine and disease and the cruel
pressures of expanding populations on diminishing resources
But while we ha\c begun to recognize the obvious correla-
tion between social, economic and political stagnation and
volcanic interna! violence, we have jet to do enough about
it. But I believe that we will begin to do more, and soon
We will do more because we will have to do more

How many twilight wars of insurgency — wars feeding
on the frustrations bom of underdevelopment — the affluent
nations will be content to witness before they rake the on!>
sensible steps possible to cure the malady at its source is
problematical Man does have the unhappy ability to stare
at the obvious, and then deliberate!) to retreat into escapist
delusions He often docs this in the ease of unpleasant truths,
only because that is more comforting in the short run than
facing up to the arduous tasks at hand But short-run de-
lusions have a habit of turning into long-run regrets The
regrets stemming from the rich nations’ delusions over the
poor nations* problems are lengthening into the tong-run
stage now, and I am increasing!) hopeful that at some point
soon — and I say soon only because dela) becomes more
disastrous year after v lolcnt year — there will be a significant
change of attitude The wealthy and secure nations of the
world will realize that they cannot possibly remain either
wealthy or secure if they continue to dose their eyes to

1 62 / The Essence of Security

the pestilence of poverty that covers the whole southern
half of the globe. They will open their eyes and act, if only
to preserve their own immunity from the infection.

The affluent nations that spend billions of dollars each
year on military hardware will begin to question the grow-
ing disproportion between those immense sums and the
relatively minuscule amounts devoted to developmental aid
• — not because the rich nations will suddenly become more
philanthropic, but because they will gradually become more
realistic. They will reach a point of realism at which it be-
comes clear chat a dollar’s worth more of military hardware
will buy less security for themselves than a dollar’s worth
more of developmental assistance.

If they ponder the matter deeply, I believe the affluent
nations of the Northern Hemisphere will conclude that they
are close to that point of realism today. Just as collective
security is the only sensible military strategy in a half-free
and half-totalitarian world, so collective developmental
assistance is the only sensible economic strategy in a half-
fed and half-famished world. Collective security and col-
lective development are but two faces of the same coin.

APPENDIX I

The Emerging Nuclear Capability of Red China

Chapter Four records my reasons for opposing the deploy-
ment of a $.40 billion antiballistic-nussUe system It is im-
portant, however, to distinguish between such an ABM
system, designed to protect against a Soviet attach, on our
cities, and systems which have other objectives One of the
other uses of an ABM system which have seriously lieen
considered is the greater protection of our strategic offen-
sive forces Another relates to the emerging nuclear capa-
bility' of Communist China There is evidence that the
Chinese arc devoting very substantial resources to the de-
velopment of both nuclear warheads and missile- delivery
systems Indications are that they will have medium-range
ballistic missiles soon, an initial intercontinental ballistic
missile capability' in the early’ 1970s, and a modest force in
the mid-seventies.

Until recently, the lead-time factor allowed us to post-
pone a decision on vv hether or not a light ABM deployment
might be needed as a countermeasure to Bed China's
iflj

164 / Appendix I

nuclear development. China still is caught up in internal
strife, but it seems likely that her basic motivation in de-
veloping a strategic nuclear capability is to provide a basis
for threatening her neighbors, and to clothe herself with
the dubious prestige that the world pays to nuclear weap-
onry. We deplore her development of these weapons, just
as we deplore it in other countries. We oppose nuclear
proliferation because we believe that in the end it only in-
creases the risk of a common and cataclysmic holocaust.

President Johnson has made it clear that the United States
will oppose any efforts of China to employ nuclear black-
mail against her neighbors. We possess now, and will con-
tinue to possess for as far ahead as wc can foresee, an
overwhelming first-strike capability with respect to China.
And despite the raucous propaganda to the effect that “the
atomic bomb is a paper tiger,” there is ample evidence that
China well appreciates the destructive power of nuclear
weapons. She has been cautious to avoid any action that
might end in a nuclear clash with the United States, how-
ever wild her words, and understandably so. Wc have the
power not only to destroy completely her entire nuclear
offensive forces but to devastate her society as well.

Is there any possibility, then, that by the mid-1970s
China might become so incautious as to attempt a nuclear
attack on the United States or our allies? It would be
suicidal for her to do so, but one can conceive conditions
under which China might miscalculate. We wish to reduce
such possibilities to a minimum. And since, as I have noted,
our strategic planning must always be conservative, and

Appendtx l / itfj

talc into consideration even the possible irrational behavior
of potential adversaries, there are irurgmal grounds for con-
cluding that a light deployment of U.S. ABMs against tins
possibility is prudent

The system will be relatively inexpensive — preliminary
estimates place the cost at about $5 billion — and will have
a much higher degree of reliability against a Chinese attack
than the much more massive and complicated system that
some have recommended against a possible Soviet attack.
Moreover, the light deployment will have a number of
other advantages It will provide an additional indication
to Asuns that we intend to deter China from nuclear black-
mail, and thus contribute toward our goal of discourapng
nuclear-weapon proliferation among the present non-
nuclear countnes It will enable us to add as a concurrent
benefit a further defense of our Minmeman sites against
Soviet attack, which means that at modest cost we would,
in fact, be adding e\ cn greater effectiveness to our offensive
missile force and a\ oiding a much more costly expansion of
that force Finally, such a reasonably reliable ABM system
will add protection of our population against the improbable
but possible accidental launching of an intercontinental
missile by any one of the nuclear powers

After a detailed review of all these considerations, we
derided in late 1967 to go forward with this Chinese-
oriented ABM deployment, and actual production of the
system began before the end of the year. In reaching this
derision, we realized that it contained two possible dangers,
and we must guard carefully* against both The first is thar

1 66 / Appendix l

we may lapse psychologically into the old oversimplifica-
tion about the adequacy of nuclear power. The simple
truth is that nuclear weapons can serve to deter only a
narrow range of threats. This ABM deployment will
strengthen our defensive posture and will enhance the
effectiveness of our land-based ICBM forces. But the inde-
pendent nations of Asia must realize that these benefits are
no substitute for their maintaining, and where necessary
strengthening, their own conventional forces in order to
deal with the more likely threats to the security of the
region.

The second danger is also psychological. There is a kind
of mad momentum intrinsic to the development of all new
nuclear weaponry. If a weapons system works and works
well, there is strong pressure from many directions to pro-
cure and deploy the weapon out of all proportion to the
prudent level required. The danger in deploying this rela-
tively light and reliable Chincsc-oricntcd ABM system is
going to be that pressures will develop to expand it into a
heavy Soviet-oriented ABM system. We must resist that
temptation firmly. We cannot for a moment afford to
relax our vigilance against a possible Soviet first strike. But
our greatest deterrent against such a strike is not a massive,
costly and highly penetrable ABM shield, but rather a fully
credible, offensive, assured-destruction capability.

Our decision to go ahead with a limited ABM deploy-
ment in no way indicates that we feel agreement with the
Soviet Union on the limitation of strategic nuclear forces
is any less urgent or desirable.

APPENDIX II

Sources

As the Preface made clear, this \oIume was drawn From a
variety of sources, including both my public addresses and
declassified porrions of reports to Congress Basic sources
for each chapter were as follows
Chapters One, Two and Three statement by the Sec-
retary of Defense to the Congress on the 1969-73 Defense
Program and the 1969 Defense Budget, January, 196$,
summary of remarks prepared for the North Atlantic
Council of Foreign and Defense Ministers, December, 1967.

Chapter Four address. United Press Imemanonal Edi-
tors and Publishers, San Francisco, September 18, 1967
Chapter Five statements to the Congress
Chapter Six, address, American Society of Newspaper
Editors, Washington, April 20, 1963.

Chapter Seven, address, Chatham College, Pittsburgh,
May aa, 1966, address, Millsaps College, Jackson, Missis-
sippi, February 24, 1967.

Chapter Eight* address, Veterans of Foreign Wars, New

i«7

1 68 / Appendix ll

York, August 23, 1966; address. Plans for Progress Confer-
ence, Washington, October 3, 19675 address, National As-
sociation of Educational Broadcasters, Denver, November
7, 1967.

Chapter Nine: address, American Society of Newspaper
Editors, Montreal, May 18, 1966.

INDEX

ARM. set Antiballistic missile
system

A fries

poverty of. ijo

aecunt)' interesrt of NATO m,
18

Alceru, t«, *7
Alliance for Progress, jo
Alliances, success of interlocking,

American*. disillusionment of. u
AntibtUortc missile system (ADM)
di-dd, i6j-«
irira rice snd, 6 $
assured -dcstnictiuTi capability

and. 6t. 6)

China and deployment of, idj-M
Sorter Union and deployment of.

di-46, i is. iM
warhead penetration of, 78

ANZUS, f

Aquinas. St Thomas, 154
Anitorle, 117, 1)4
Ami nee. 58-62
ABM and, 65
but for, 58-59
continuation of, 60-6 1
folly of, 67
•* mean* to end. di
Asia, pmeny In, ijo
Am and Pacific Council, si
Asian Development Bank, is
Atmrianoti of Sous heist Avan Na-
tion*. aj

Assured -destruction capability. 160
ABM »nd, 61, 6j
credibility of. JI-JJ
definition of, ji
press megatonnage and, j6
need to maintain, 76
site of forces for, 77
Atla* (missiles), 71-75
Augustine. St, 11&

fieri in (VV'cst)
crisis in, 12, 160
nuclear power and 59
Boll* it. 19
Brain drain, 108-9
B-70 (aircraft), comrorem over,
91-91

California, open housing in 11S
Canada, peace bets* cm US and,

Castro, Fid*!, resolution and. 14-ij
Osina (Red)

Cultural Resolution in, 17*19
directum and potent ill of, «i-ij
economic ttif'tiitinn ami, 147-48
capamion of, tjj
furore ttpmcs m, 19-10
India and
border dispute, 16
objectives in India of, if -id
interests in Southeast Am of
nuclear ryatem of, 75-77
ao-:a

l«9

: 70 / Index

China (Red) ( continued )
setbacks to, 14

Soviet Union and Sino-Soviet
dispute, 14-16

Soviet Union as moderating in-
fluence on, ao
tolerance-to-daniage of, 76
U. S. and

ABM deployment by U. S.,
163-66

changes in relations, 156, 157
containment of, 5
diplomatic relations, 20
war between, 164-63
Western statesmanship and, 13
world revolution and, 14 - ij
See also Communism
China, Republic of (Taiwan), 5, 25
Cold War, ideologies of, 10
Collective defense, 3-11
Congress and, 8- to
isolationism and, 6-7
1967 setback in, 8-10
principle of, 4
ultimate goal of, 5-6
See also ANZUS; NATO; Rio
Treaty; SEATO

Colonialism, as technological gap,
108

Common Market, 33

technological gap and, 108
Communism

division in world of, 13-14
economic stagnation and, 147-48
multiple centers of, 3-4
promise vs. reality of, 5
Congress, collective defense and,
8-to

Conflicts

national wealth and, 146
quantity of de facto, J45
Conventional forces, 81-85
growth of, 81-82
logistic system for, 84-85
mobility of, 82-84
rc-evaluation of (rpSi), 78-79
Strategic Reserve and, 80
use of, 79

Cuba, iz, 160
insurgency sponsored by, 29

Cultural Revolution, Great, 17-19

Defense, Department of, 88-104
bilincal organizational structure
of, 96-97
budget, 93-94

budgetary grouping of defense
needs by, 90-91

cost of developing weapons
and, 91-94

cost reduction program, 89
Planning-programing-Budget-
ing-Sysccm of, 94-95
savings, 101-3

systems-aualysis staff of, 95-96
challenge to, 87
creation of (1947), 96
efficiency in, 88-89
motivation for efficiency, 100-1
gravest problem of, 51
managing of, x-xi
axioms to managing, 88
military and

logistics management, 98-100
military effectiveness and, 89-
90

organization of Joint Chiefs of
Staff by, 97-98
mission of, rn
national interest and, 103-4
core conclusions on national
defense and, x-xi
principles in directing national
defense, viii-ix

number of people employed by,
vii

social programs of, see Social
programs

Democracy, management and, 109,
119

Deterrence, jj-67
ABM as

arms race and, 6j
assured- destruction capability
of, 62, 63

72 / Index

Germany (West)
education in, hi
industrialization of, m
NATO and, 33, 36, 40, 42
Gesell, Gerhard A., 123, 124
Great Britain, see United Kingdom
Great Leap Forward, 18
Greece

NATO and, 33
U.S. aid to, 27-28

Gross National Product, military
expenditures and, 153
Guevara, Ernesto Che, 29

Housing, open, for armed forces,
«3- 2 7

ICBM, see Intercontinental bal-
listic missiles
India, 15
China and
border dispute, r6
objectives in India of, 25-26
conflict with Pakistan of, 25-26,
>54

Soviet Union and
aid to India, 26
India-Paldstan conflict, 154
U.S. military aid to, 25
Indonesia, 14, 25
Intercontinental ballistic missiles
(ICBM)

ABM and, 166
attack by, 71-72
in deterrence, 57-58
quantity of, 73-75
Iraq, 26
Iran, 27

Isolationism, possibility of return
to, 6-7
Israel, 16

Italy, education in, in
Japan, j

industrialization of, in
military defense of, 30, 31
Jefferson, Thomas, 1 17
Johnson, Lyndon B., 65, 88, 143,
iji

China and, 164

on community of interests be-
tween nations, 156
Joint Chiefs of Staff, 95-98

Kennedy, John F., 65, 88, 143
Khrushchev, Nikita, 33
Korea (North), 21, 24-25
war in, 6, 59
Korea (South), 24-25
defense agreements with, 5
war in, 6, 59

Laos, 15

conflict in, 23-24
Latin America, 14, 31
armed insurgency in, 29-30
military policy toward, 28-29
poverty in, 130
world revolution and, 14-15
Logistics

conventional forces and, 84-85
management of, 98-100

Management, 109-12

democracy and, 109, 119
education for, m-12
importance of, 109-10
Alao Tsc-tung, 18-19
Marshall Plan, 154
Maryland, open housing for armed
forces in, 126

Mekong Development Project, 21
Middle East, 15, 25, 160
Soviet penetration into, 26-28
turmoil in (1967), 26-27
Minuteman (missile launchers)
ABM and, 63
build-up of (1961), 58
deployment of, 72-73, 75, 165
quantity of, 54

Missile systems, see ABM; Atlas;
ICBM; Minuteman; Nike-
Zeus; Polaris; Poseidon; Reg-
ulus; Titan
Morocco, 28

Nationalism, 108-9
National liberation, wars of, 14

74 / Index

Security (continued)
narrow notion of, 141-42
poverty and, 122-23
public participation in, vii-viii
Selective Service System, 157', ree
also Draft

Social injustice, national security
and, 122-23

Social organization, growing com-
plexity of, 120
Social programs, 123-40
open housing as, 123-27
Project 100,000 as, 127-28, 131-
138

Project Transition as, 138-40
South America, sec Latin America
Southeast Asia, see Laos; Thailand;
Vietnam

Southeast Asia Treaty Organiza-
tion (SEATO), s
Soviet Union
accommodation with, 4
China and

Sino-Sovict dispute, 14-16
Soviet Union as moderating in-
fluence on, 20

constructive behavior of, ij-16
containment of, 5
defense expenditures of, 17
deterrence capability of, 160
ABM deployment and, 62-66,
165, 1 66

first-strike capability of, 54-55,
60-61

nuclear arsenal of, 54, 56-59
second-strike capability of, 55-
5 fi

warheads and, 57
economic stagnation and, 147-48
Europe and, 35-36
India and
aid to India, 26
lndia-Pakistan conflict and, 154
interests in Southeast Asia of.

Middle East and
penetration into Middle East,
26-28

turmoil (1967) in, 26-27
NATO and, 33-42
creation of NATO and, 33
NATO as deterrence to, 35-37
U.S. commitment to, 37-39
political and military develop-
ments of, 16-17

restraint of, in support of North
Vietnam, 14, 15
setbacks to, 14
U.S. and

changes in relations, 156, 157
conflicting interests, 12, ij
Western statesmanship and, 13
world revolution and, 14-15
See also Communism
Studcncs

protests of, 113-15
refreshing quality of ferment
among, 117

Vietnam war and demonstrations
by, 113
Syria, 26, 27

Technological gap, 107-13
brain drain and, 108
as colonialism, 108
education as closing of, 110-13
Europe and, 108-9
as managerial gap, 109-10
Technology, 117
fear of, 114-16
Thailand, 23
Titan (missiles), 72-73
T rewhitt, Henry, viii
Truman, Harry S., 123
Tunisia, 28
Turkey, 27
NATO and, 33

United Arab Republic (U.A.U.),
z6, 27

United Kingdom, 35, 108
education in, in
NATO and, 36
United Nations, 26, 154
charter of, 5

x 7 6 / Index

U.S.S.R., see Soviet Union

Vietnam (North)
conflict with, 4

conflict of China and Soviet
Union over, 20-22
infiltration into Laos of, 23-24
Soviet restraint in support of, 14,
> 5 .

war aid to, 13

Vietnam (South), war in, 15, 2*,
160

forces sent to (196$), 80
nations involved in, 134
Negro casualty race in (1967),
”5

student demonstrations and, 113
Virginia, open housing for armed
forces in, 126

War, sec Nuclear war
Washington (D.C.), open housing
for armed forces in, 126
Weapons systems, 68-86
B-70 in, 91-92
development costs of, 91-92
limitations of nuclear, 69-70
Nike-Zeus, 74
non-nuclear, 78-86
restraint in choosing new, 92-93
tactical nuclear, 69
use of nuclear, 70-78
See also ABM; ICBM
West Germany, see Germany
Wilson, Harold, 108
World Bank, 146, 147
World revolution, 14-15

Yemen, 27

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